Introduction
The introduction examines the concept of spirit, which, thanks to psychologists like Gordon Allport and theologians like Winifred Kirkland, had become synonymous with the term “personality.” Thus, to the extent that prostheses were regarded as spiritual extensions of their wearers, they could reveal the fuller dimensions of amputees’ personalities—their emotional and spiritual strivings, not just their practical or vocational aspirations. These prosthetic designs were in keeping with vitalist Henri Bergson’s hope that the war would instill in the Allied forces not a “mechanization of spirit,” but rather a “spiritualization of matter.” Then drawing on prosthetic theories outlined by Vivian Sobchack, the introduction articulates the book’s thrust: designed and depicted to transcend their materiality in the hopes of offering disabled veterans a new start in the postwar world, prostheses often possessed the insidious potential to physically and psychically mechanize their wearers. Finally, the introduction offers a chapter-by-chapter summary.