Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

This book is a tour de force of psychological analysis and literary criticism. In it, Dr. Shay blends the Illiad with the heartbreaking words of veterans to develop a theory of post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is caused by a breakdown in themis, the internal sense of “what is right” that allows people to belong to an ordered society. Confronted by the betrayal of their superiors, the deception of the enemy, grief at the deaths of close friends, the privations of the battlefield, and finally the corrosive rage of the berserker state, many soldiers lost an essential part of their humanity. By drawing on both classical literature, and his professional knowledge of the challenges that returning veterans face, Dr. Shay paints a detailed portrait of the human cost of war.