Technical progress and the sexual emancipation of modernity, which outstripped the mental capabilities of a person in the 19th century, launched “nervous” mechanisms in culture that expressed a heightened sense of the new world and required new methods of overcoming, which ultimately turned out to be so diverse and in many ways fatal. In this vein, the eminent German historian Joachim Radkau offers readers a unique cultural history of nerves in Germany. Fundamental research reveals a panorama of a grandiose era in which nerves determined both the then young branch of medical science and human everyday life. Based on rich archival material, Radkau describes in detail both the anamnesis and the epicrisis of the last 150 years of “nervous discourse” and asks the question of what this notorious “disease of the nerves” is - a cultural construct caused by turning points in history or a true experience of suffering, a passing fashion or a constant , individual or collective phenomenon? In search of answers, the book offers a fascinating model for interpreting political, cultural and personal history. The book is addressed to a wide range of readers - historians, cultural scientists, political scientists, social psychologists.