Review of PTSD: diagnosis and identity in post-empire America - Lembcke, Jerry [Book review]

War based post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)is well-established condition. Building on his earlier critical book 'The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam' (1998), Vietnam veteran and sociologist Jerry Lembcke explores the mythology and belief systems associated with PTSD in accounts from the First World War to Afghanistan and Iraq. He argues that there is a mythology of military victimhood that has become a cultural trope that some war veterans have adopted to validate their participation in what some in their society has seen as unjust wars