More than 16,000 Canadian soldiers suffered from shell shock during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. Despite significant interest from historians, we still know relatively little about how it was experienced, diagnosed, treated, and managed in the frontline trenches in the Canadian and British forces.

How did soldiers relate to suffering comrades? Did large numbers of shell shock cases affect the outcome of important battles? Was frontline psychiatric treatment as effective as many experts claimed after the war? Were Canadians treated any differently than other Commonwealth soldiers? A Weary Road is the first comprehensive study to address these important questions. Author Mark Osborne Humphries uses research from Canadian, British, and Australian archives, including hundreds of newly available hospital records and patient medical files, to provide a history of war trauma as it was experienced, treated, and managed by ordinary soldiers.

Mark Humphries is an assistant professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he teaches war and society and military history. His books include The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health (forthcoming) and The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie (2008). His article “War’s Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine, and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914–1939” won the 2010 Canadian Historical Review Prize.

John Maker received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Ottawa in 2010. He currently teaches for the Royal Military College and is a professional researcher in Ottawa, Ontario.

Wilhelm J. Kiesselbach (translator) was born in Hamburg, Germany, where he completed a B.A. in English and journalism. After emigrating to the United States he was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army and spent seven years with Seventh Army Headquarters in Germany as translator and interpreter. For his service in Vietnam, he was decorated with the Army Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star.

Mark Osborne Humphries' profile page

• Winner, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles of 2019 awarded by the American Library Association

"With A Weary Road, Humphries deftly tackles the immensely complicated topic of shell shock: how it was understood and diagnosed, the vivisions within the medical community, how treatment evlved over the course of the war, and how medical and military interests could collide."

Literary Review of Canada, Vol 27, no. 2