In this history of American political culture, Keith Wailoo examines how pain has defined the line between liberals and conservatives from just after World War II to the present. From disabling pain to end-of-life pain to fetal pain, the battle over whose pain is real and who deserves relief has created stark ideological divisions at the bedside, in politics, and in the courts. Beginning with the return of soldiers after World War II and fierce medical and political disagreements about whether pain constitutes a true disability, Wailoo explores the 1960s rise of an expansive liberal pain standard along with the emerging conviction that subjective pain was real, disabling, and compensable. These concepts were attacked during the Reagan era, when a conservative backlash led to diminished disability aid and an expanding role of courts as arbiters in the politicized struggle to define pain. New fronts in pain politics opened nationwide as advocates for death with dignity insisted that end-of-life pain warranted full relief, while the religious right mobilized around fetal pain. The book ends with the 2003 OxyContin arrest of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a cautionary tale about deregulation and the widening gaps between the overmedicated and the undertreated.

I wasn't sure what a palliative care doctor was doing reading about the political history of pain, but I soon found it hard to put down... Anyone who works in palliative care and has a broader interest in the political and legal aspects of pain management and physician-assisted suicide will enjoy this book. -- Roger Woodruff International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care This book should be read by patients, clinicians and policy makers who wish to understand the recent past to guide future advocacy, public engagement and policy as we seek... to change the way chronic pain is perceived, managed and judged-for the betterment of all. -- Richard Payne Pains Project A deeply felt and provocative history of the political uses to which pain has been put in modern America. Science Will surely bring to mind the aphorism of Santayana, that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. But it does so much more: If we want to understand the origins of terms such as 'welfare queen' and 'entitlements for the undeserving' and 'givers versus takers,' we need look no further than Pain: A Political History. -- Troy Duster Chronicle Review This well-rounded discussion of the politics of pain and pain relief in post WW II America is an approachable resource for readers from many disciplines and backgrounds... This book would be a good political entry point for scholars in sociology and medical humanities, and medical practitioners. Readers in political science and public policy will find this a good topical summary of pain management laws and movements. Choice In short, Wailoo argues, pain is an effective political issue. It just depends on whose pain you're talking about. -- Sam Baker National Journal An interesting and engaging read... It is refreshing to read about the need to find a middle ground when discussing pain in relation to the political forum... This book would be of insight to anyone with an interest in the historical management of pain. The Nursing Times In Pain: A Political History, Keith Wailoo illuminates the social, political, and ideological lines along which our understanding of pain and our approach to treating (and paying for) it have been drawn. Health Affairs Pain: A Political History is a useful introduction to a study of the role of pain in postwar American legislation on disability, physician-assisted suicide and fetal pain. Centere for Medical Humanities Wailoo bring[s] the creative and unexpected tools that have enlivened scholarship on the senses. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Here's a must-read book for scholars and students of American history as well as history of medicine. Isis Wailoo bring[s] the creative and unexpected tools that have enlivened scholarship on the senses. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Keith Wailoo is the Townsend Martin Professor of History and Public Affairs and Vice Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is coauthor of The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine: Ethnicity and Innovation in Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease and author of Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America.