The Labour of Loss

’ … compelling … The Labour of Loss offers a new perspective on the impact of twentieth-century warfare, because it engages seriously with the dimensions of grief and emotion experienced by soldiers and their families.’ Kate Darian-Smith, The Times Literary Supplement ‘This sensitive, though sometimes harrowing, study of the impact of war and the ensuring peace … will surely have wide cross-disciplinary resonance.’ The Times Higher Education Supplement ‘ … deserves the highest praise. Without ever sacrificing a formidable theoretical power, [Damousi] never forgets that this is an intensely human story. It is one of the best, perhaps the best, book of its kind.’ English Historical Review ‘… scholarly and humane …’. Grief Matters

Professor Joy Damousi is Head of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. Her previous publications include Depraved and Disorderly: Female Convicts, Sexuality and Gender in Colonial Australia (1990), The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia (1999), Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War Australia (2001) and Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia (2005; Winner of the 2006 Ernest Scott Prize).