Book Review

Comparative/World

Like the practitioners of the world's oldest profession, disabled veterans have been a part of society since time immemorial. Unlike prostitutes, however, little has been written about them. This volume of essays is designed to provide an overview of the place of disabled veterans in Western societies. Although generally muted, awareness of the presence of disabled veterans has been continuous since ancient times. The level of awareness has grown greatly in the past two centuries, especially in the twentieth, with its wars of industrial mass destruction and the emergence of mass politics. The modern warfare state produced the modern welfare state, and veterans have been a key component of its development. In a thoughtful and useful introduction, editor David A. Gerber traces the evolution of policies affecting disabled veterans, describes the conceptual foundations of the book, and introduces the individual essays.	1
The book's discussion is shaped by three broad analytical categories: representation, public policy, and the experience of disability. These categories frequently overlap. Historically, two of the main tropes of representation have been pity and fear. Observers feel pity at the plight of the war-disabled, while at the same time fearing that the horrific experience of war and mutilation will make the disabled veteran prone to violence and incapable of reassimilation into civil society. As Gerber notes, the perception and treatment of veterans has been a gendered discourse. Disability subverts the masculine ideal of the warrior by producing dependence, which traditionally has been associated with femininity. A major goal of veterans' policies has been to regain independence and the capacity to work—traditional markers of masculinity—and thus to avoid the twin dangers of infantilization and feminization.	2
Discernible public policies only began to emerge with the growth of the centralized early modern state. The need for the state to deal with disabled veterans was neither perceived nor would it have been possible during the feudal period with its inchoate states and essentially private military forces. This changed with the emergence of the early modern state and the creation of standing armies. The numbers of disabled veterans increased, as did their capacity to become an organized, disruptive force. Fear of veterans' disruptive potential was also coupled with a sense of obligation to provide for those injured in defense of the state. As a consequence, pension programs and veterans' homes were developed. Early programs were unsystematic and riddled with provisions that privileged regular army veterans and aristocratic officers. A harbinger of the future treatment of disabled veterans, as well as the nature of warfare itself, was provided by the American Civil War and its aftermath. Unprecedented casualties, combined with democratic politics and the rise of interest groups, have shaped the contours of disabled veterans' legislation and political activity in the twentieth century. During World War I, the traditional ways of conceiving of the future of disabled veterans—pensions and warehousing—began to be challenged by a counterdiscourse in all belligerent societies that envisioned aggressive normalization through physical restoration and vocational training.	. . .