Writer of the month: Human woes – researching violence and pain in the archives

Joanna Bourke discusses her book What it Means to be Human: Reflections from 1791 to the Present and how she uses original records in her writing.

Joanna Bourke is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the prize-winning author of nine books, including: Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War (1996); An Intimate History of Killing (1999); Fear: A Cultural History (2005); and Rape: A History from the 1860s to the Present (2007).