Main description:

Very few people have not at some point in their lives believed themselves or their loved ones to be reasonably healthy when, in "reality", sickness was encroaching or never went away. Health has been deceiving us for thousands of years, but rarely have we entirely dispensed with it as a concept. This book sets out to establish why and how that might be. The first of its kind, this longue duree historical study explores some of the ways in which people in western societies and cultures have come to believe that they, or other people, have perceived or misperceived health, well-being and euphoria-a word which, before the twentieth century, usually named the experience of health. This book draws from a number of areas of historical research, including the histories of convalescence, addiction, madness and Sigmund Freud's interest in Euphorie in his pre-psychoanalytical period.

Contents:

1. Introduction Part I: The Perception of Health 2. Frances Burney and the Loss and Restoration of Health Part II: The Misperception of Health 3. Mistakes, Disappointments and Shattered Ideals 4. Gods, Goodness and Going Back: Meanings and Values of Health 5. Rarities of Misperception: Freedom from Doubt 6. The Experts: Guides to the Perception and Misperception of Health Part III: The Misperceiving Other 7. Unreason: The Unhealthy Mind 8. Pleasure, Delirium and Hypochondria: When the "Mad" Misperceive Their Health 9. Fin de Siecle: Decadence, Degeneration and the Pleasures of Declining Health 10. Partial Insanity: Resemblances Between the "Mad" and the Sane 11. Addictive Medicine: Resemblances Between Oblivion and Restoration Part IV: Euphoria 12. A History of Euphoria 13. Cocaine, Hypnotism and Joyful Death: Sigmund Freud in Euphorie Part V: The Misperception of Well-Being 14. Fools and Monsters: A Sickness at Humanity's Heart 15. Euphoria Obama: Cruel and Unusual Euphoria 16. Conclusion