My Age of Anxiety

<b>Scott Stossel</b> is the editor of <i>The Atlantic</i>. Previously he was the executive editor of <i>The American Prospect</i>. He is also the author of <i>Sarge: The Life </i><i>and Times of Sargent Shriver</i>. A graduate of Harvard he lives with his family in Washington DC. <p><b>THE <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER and SHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2015 </b><br><br>As recently as thirty-five years ago anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.<br><br>Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety Stossel presents an astonishing history at once intimate and authoritative of the efforts to understand the condition from medical cultural philosophical and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists such as Charles Darwin William James and Sigmund Freud as they began to explore its sources and causes to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety as well as the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion’s myriad manifestations and the anguish it produces but also the countless psychotherapies medications and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety’s human toll – its crippling impact its devastating power to paralyse – while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it.<br><br><i>My Age of Anxiety</i> is learned and empathetic humorous and inspirational offering the reader great insight into the biological cultural and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.</p> <b>Unflinchingly honest</b> and written in an accessible style…This is a courageous entertaining and well-researched book about a condition that is thought to currently affect 15 percent if people in the UK. [A] vivid smart exploration of the history of anxiety. Stossel tackles genetics nature and nurture drug development and changing medical and philosophical attitudes with the lightest of touches. [A] courageous and hilarious journey to the edge of insanity…Stossel’s patient conscientious uncertainty contains more wit and sensitivity than a hundred manifestos…<b>an immense achievement.</b> Fascinating and hugely entertaining. An intense incredibly brave narrative tinged with moments of outright hilarity it’s impossible to put down. <b>Careful and clearly written his book contains more truth wit and sensitivity than 100 manifestos.</b> <p><b>THE <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER and SHORTLISTED FOR THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2015 </b><br><br>As recently as thirty-five years ago anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.<br><br>Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety Stossel presents an astonishing history at once intimate and authoritative of the efforts to understand the condition from medical cultural philosophical and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists such as Charles Darwin William James and Sigmund Freud as they began to explore its sources and causes to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety as well as the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion’s myriad manifestations and the anguish it produces but also the countless psychotherapies medications and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety’s human toll – its crippling impact its devastating power to paralyse – while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it.<br><br><i>My Age of Anxiety</i> is learned and empathetic humorous and inspirational offering the reader great insight into the biological cultural and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.</p>