We become ill in ways our parents and grandparents did not, with diseases unheard of and treatments undreamed of by them. Illness has changed in the postmodern era—roughly the period since World War II—as dramatically as technology, transportation, and the texture of everyday life. Exploring these changes, David B. Morris tells the fascinating story, or stories, of what goes into making the postmodern experience of illness different, perhaps unique. Even as he decries the overuse and misuse of the term "postmodern," Morris shows how brightly ideas of illness, health, and postmodernism illuminate one another in late-twentieth-century culture.

Modern medicine traditionally separates disease—an objectively verified disorder—from illness—a patient's subjective experience. Postmodern medicine, Morris says, can make no such clean distinction; instead, it demands a biocultural model, situating illness at the crossroads of biology and culture. Maladies such as chronic fatigue syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder signal our awareness that there are biocultural ways of being sick.

The biocultural vision of illness not only blurs old boundaries but also offers a new and infinitely promising arena for investigating both biology and culture. In many ways Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age leads us to understand our experience of the world differently.

David B. Morris, winner of a 1992 PEN award for The Culture of Pain (California, 1991) and author of the award-winning Alexander Pope: The Genius of Sense (1984), lives and writes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His most recent book is Earth Warrior: Overboard with Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (1995).

"My view of the world, and my work within it, is more complex, and my life proportionally richer, for having read this book."—Iona Heath, British Medical Journal

"David B. Morris, winner of 1992 PEN prize for The Culture of Pain, constructs a compelling argument for viewing health and illness from a biocultural model, allowing the patient as storyteller to emerge as the dominant figure in our uncertain, shifting landscape...Morris has an obvious love of language. His writing is keen-edged, and his agility with metaphor translates weighty and ambiguous issues into powerful visual images. This is an important book, one that will serve all postmodern practitioners interested in making more significant contributions to their patients’ lives."—Kathryn Veal, Modern Pathology

“This book by an essayist who has observed modern medical life deserves respectful attention.”—The New England Journal of Medicine

“Morris [has authored] a highly readable study of the context of how we hurt.”—GQ

"Morris weaves a seamless web from Nietzsche to Warhol, convincing us that postmodernism is not a trendy label but a necessary context for talk about health and illness, medicine and suffering. . . . Anyone who wants to understand why people get sick differently in different cultures, and what's making us sick here and now, will be refreshed and enlightened by this book."—Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller

"Readers will come away excited by new ideas, new relations among old issues, new readings, and new insights into illness, medicine, and society."—Arthur Kleinman, author of Writing at the Margin