The age of stress : science and the search for stability / Mark Jackson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jackson, Mark, 1959-

Series:

Oxford historical monographs. (NL-LeOCL)832138347.

Oxford historical monographs

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stress (Psychology).

Stress (Physiology).

Science and psychology.

Diseases--Causes and theories of causation.

Stress, Psychological.

Stress, Psychological--epidemiology.

Stress, Physiological.

Life Change Events.

Adaptation, Biological.

Happiness.

Medical Subjects:

Stress, Psychological.

Stress, Psychological--epidemiology.

Stress, Physiological.

Life Change Events.

Adaptation, Biological.

Happiness.

Physical Description:

ix, 311 pages : illustrations portraits ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.

Summary:

In The Age of Stress, Mark Jackson explores the history of scientific studies of stress in the modern world. In particular, he reveals how the science that legitimates and fuels current anxieties about stress has been shaped by a wide range of socio-political and cultural, as well as biological, factors: stress, he argues, is both a condition and a metaphor. This approach is not designed or intended to deny the reality of stress in people's lives, or to undermine the validity of scientific investigations. Rather, Jackson suggests that if we are to comprehend the ubiquity and impact of stress in our own times, or to explain how stress has commandeered such a central place in the modern imagination, we need to understand not only the evolution of the medical science and technology that has gradually uncovered the biological pathways between stress and disease in recent decades, but also the shifting political and cultural contexts that have invested that scientific knowledge with meaning and authority. In particular, he argues that we need to acknowledge the manner in which our obsessions with the relationship between stress and disease are the product of broader historical concerns about the preservation of personal and political, as well as physiological, stability. -- Publisher

Contents:

1 The Shock of Modernity 21

2 Adaptation and Disease 56

3 The Biochemistry of Life 99

4 The Cathedral of Stress 141

5 Coping with Stress 181

6 The Pursuit of Happiness 224.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199588626

0199588627

OCLC:

818450008