Fear the word, itself, conjures the appropriate response. With a dark cacophony of associations like fright, dread, horror, panic, alarm, anxiety, and terror, fear is universally understood as one of the most basic and powerful of human emotions, obtaining a nearly palpable and overwhelming substance in today's world.

In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed historian and prize-winning author Joanna Bourke covers the landscape of fear over the past two hundred years: From the nineteenth century dread of being buried alive a subject dear to the heart of Edgar Allen Poe to the current worry over being able to die when one chooses; from the diagnoses of phobias and anxieties produced by psychotherapists and lovingly catalogued, to the role of popular culture and media in inciting panic and dread; from the horrors of the nuclear age to the fear of twenty-first century terrorism, Fear tells the story of anguish in modern times.

A blend of social and cultural history with psychology, philosophy, and popular science, this astonishing book exhaustively researched and beautifully written offers strikingly original insights into the mind and worldview of the "long twentieth century" from one of the most brilliant scholars of our time.