Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs: Essays on Central Europe, c. 1683–1867. By R. J. W. Evans. (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. x, 337. $99.00.)

Abstract

Nationality in dress is the visual manifestation of a communal cultural identity, often idealistic and nostalgic but rarely conforming to individual realities. Most historians of dress are uncomfortable with such a concept, which lends itself all too easily to stereotype and fails to include another crucial factor in social identity, that of class. No discussion of British society, culture, or history can escape the issue of social class, which proves to be an underlining theme in these recent publications. Local distinction in sartorial style is a phenomenon countering the globalization of clothing manufacture that has resulted in the "homogenization" of contemporary fashion and a worldwide flood of standardized jeans, T-shirts, etc. Both books under review examine how British garment industries created fashions to be sold within Britain and beyond and discuss how what appealed to Britons might or might not sell to the Americans, French, and Japanese, whose concept of "Britishness" proved to be something quite different.Alison Goodrum's The National Fabric is the less satisfying of the two books, retaining large chunks of what appears to be an undigested Ph.D. thesis, particularly chapter two. The excessive theorizing, in keeping with much literature on the subject of cultural studies, will be of little interest to readers outside the field of fashion history, and specialists in dress and culture will have read it all before in every other fashion book published by Berg. The title is slightly misleading; the book is not a general assessment of dress, nationality, and globalization in Britain, but an examination of these in the context of two specific companies and how each one's interpretation of "Britishness" sells within and outside Britain. Mulberry, under the direction of Roger Saul, has based its aesthetic on a stereotype of the British upper class in the 1930s: the tweeds, the leather, the tailoring, the floral dresses, the "huntin', fishin', shootin' " gear (77). Goodrum's analysis illustrates that although such a look has had huge and perennial appeal to foreign markets, it has been less reliable commercially on the home front, for within Britain the attraction of such elitist nostalgia is limited. Mulberry had great success in the

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

“…In recent years, serotonergic dysregulation has been postulated as an important aetiological factor in the response to extreme and traumatic stress, and the role of serotonin has been explored in animal model studies, pharmacologic challenge tests, clinical studies of paroxetine binding, and neuroimaging studies (Fichtner et al, 1994 ;Southwick et al, 1995). Results of open and controlled trials of the SSRIs, and drugs with serotonergic properties [e.g.…”

Post-traumatic stress disorder

“…In recent years, serotonergic dysregulation has been postulated as an important aetiological factor in the response to extreme and traumatic stress, and the role of serotonin has been explored in animal model studies, pharmacologic challenge tests, clinical studies of paroxetine binding, and neuroimaging studies (Fichtner et al, 1994 ;Southwick et al, 1995). Results of open and controlled trials of the SSRIs, and drugs with serotonergic properties [e.g.…”