What do you think?
Rate this book
Wall Disease: The Psychological Toll of Living Up Against a Border
We build border walls to keep danger out . But do we understand the danger posed by walls themselves ?
East Germans were the first to give the crisis a Mauerkrankheit, or “wall disease.” The afflicted—everyday citizens living on both sides of the Berlin wall—displayed some combination of depression, anxiety, excitability, suicidal ideation, and paranoia. The Berlin Wall is no more, but today there are at least seventy policed borders like it. What are they doing to our minds?
Jessica Wapner investigates, following a trail of psychological harm around the world. In Brownsville, Texas, the hotly contested US-Mexico border wall instills more feelings of fear than of safety. And in eastern Europe, a Georgian grandfather pines for his homeland—cut off from his daughters, his baker, and his bank by the arbitrary path of a razor-wire fence built in 2013. Even in borderlands riven by conflict, the same walls that once offered relief become enduring reminders of trauma and helplessness.
Our brains, Wapner writes, devote “border cells” to where we can and cannot go safely—so, a wall that goes up in our town also goes up in our minds. Weaving together interviews with those living up against walls and expert testimonies from geographers, scientists, psychologists, and other specialists, she explores the growing epidemic of wall disease—and illuminates how neither those “outside” nor “inside” are immune.
East Germans were the first to give the crisis a Mauerkrankheit, or “wall disease.” The afflicted—everyday citizens living on both sides of the Berlin wall—displayed some combination of depression, anxiety, excitability, suicidal ideation, and paranoia. The Berlin Wall is no more, but today there are at least seventy policed borders like it. What are they doing to our minds?
Jessica Wapner investigates, following a trail of psychological harm around the world. In Brownsville, Texas, the hotly contested US-Mexico border wall instills more feelings of fear than of safety. And in eastern Europe, a Georgian grandfather pines for his homeland—cut off from his daughters, his baker, and his bank by the arbitrary path of a razor-wire fence built in 2013. Even in borderlands riven by conflict, the same walls that once offered relief become enduring reminders of trauma and helplessness.
Our brains, Wapner writes, devote “border cells” to where we can and cannot go safely—so, a wall that goes up in our town also goes up in our minds. Weaving together interviews with those living up against walls and expert testimonies from geographers, scientists, psychologists, and other specialists, she explores the growing epidemic of wall disease—and illuminates how neither those “outside” nor “inside” are immune.
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2020
2 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Wapner
6 books13 followersJessica Wapner is a freelance writer focused on health, medicine and scientific research.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 18, 2020
This is a book that I just sort of stumbled on--I hadn’t heard anything about it--and I’m so glad that I picked it up. As the subtitle suggests, it explores the psychological impact of living close to a border wall. She has interviewed people living at different border walls around the world, and in each chapter, she uses these real-world examples of individuals while exploring more abstract ideas.
The term “wall disease” is the English translation of a coin termed in Germany about the Berlin wall, and how the people living close to it were affected. Since then, it hasn’t really been used, but this book looks as border walls as a whole: what do they have in common, and what strain do they put on people living near them, regardless of the context?
This is a very short book--it’s 128 pages, but it’s 97 pages before the endnotes--but it is packed full of “hey, did you know” facts, and gave me so much to think about: I read this on my laptop, and every chapter, I’d end up reading parts aloud to my partner, because they were just so fascinating.
Wapner argues that borders don't accomplish what they seek to: they don’t make us safer, and they don’t keep out undocumented immigrants. Instead, she argues that they are inherently violent, separating families, ethnic groups, even property or homes--there are multiple examples of families who found themselves on opposite sides of a border wall after they’ve lived in that spot for many generations.
Wall Disease also says that border walls have negative effects on people’s mental health around the world: that people near borders have higher rates of depression, and view the people on the other side of the wall as alien and dangerous. They stir up animosity. Unsurprisingly, one of the borders looked is between the US and Mexico, and Wapner points out that the militarization of this border is recent, beginning in 1990s--before that it was mostly unmanned. Border Patrol started in 2003.
By looking at the history of these borders and border walls, you begin to think about how artificial and arbitrary these divisions are that feel so entrenched and even inevitable. She argues that borders are not lines, they're gradients: there's a large swath of land where cultures and countries mix.
Wapner introduces a lot of ideas from different scientific fields that relate to border walls. Some of these feel like a bit of a stretch, but they’re all very thought provoking. For example, there are actually "border cells" in animals' brains: cells that recognize walls and barriers, the edges of our movement, and Wapner argues that by living against a wall, our brains are essentially always firing these cells, and making us feel like we’re trapped.
She also looks at places (like Berlin) where walls have been removed, and how long the impact remains. In Berlin, it’s called the "mental wall": the effect the wall still has on people 15 years after unification--including driving routes as if the wall is still these.
Some more fascinating facts I learned:
- People who have positive associations with a place will estimate that it's closer to them than people with negative associations.
- In Lima, Peru, a concrete wall separates the wealthy and poor neighborhoods. The poor residents call it the Wall of Shame: poor workers have to travel long distances around the wall to go to work, some kids have never been on the other side.
Wall Disease troubles the idea of borders and countries, pointing out that this is an idea rooted in a specific place (Europe) and time (17th centwaury onwards)--as opposed to empires, dynasties, nomadic regions, city states, etc that are allied by allegiance to a leader, or family bonds, or trade relationships. It was only after 1914 that travel required a passport (though the Chinese Exclusion Act was an exception to free movement)--that only changed after WWI.
I think this is a really important book because it makes the reader question the existence of borders and walls, which have become so normalized, as if borders are natural. Wapner asks us to question how we hold the “artificial construction of national borders in our minds and how they shape the way we think about the world and our place within it”
(As an aside, it was very weird to read a book that mentions COVID-19. I’m not ready for that yet.)
This was an excellent thought experiment of a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.
The term “wall disease” is the English translation of a coin termed in Germany about the Berlin wall, and how the people living close to it were affected. Since then, it hasn’t really been used, but this book looks as border walls as a whole: what do they have in common, and what strain do they put on people living near them, regardless of the context?
This is a very short book--it’s 128 pages, but it’s 97 pages before the endnotes--but it is packed full of “hey, did you know” facts, and gave me so much to think about: I read this on my laptop, and every chapter, I’d end up reading parts aloud to my partner, because they were just so fascinating.
Wapner argues that borders don't accomplish what they seek to: they don’t make us safer, and they don’t keep out undocumented immigrants. Instead, she argues that they are inherently violent, separating families, ethnic groups, even property or homes--there are multiple examples of families who found themselves on opposite sides of a border wall after they’ve lived in that spot for many generations.
Wall Disease also says that border walls have negative effects on people’s mental health around the world: that people near borders have higher rates of depression, and view the people on the other side of the wall as alien and dangerous. They stir up animosity. Unsurprisingly, one of the borders looked is between the US and Mexico, and Wapner points out that the militarization of this border is recent, beginning in 1990s--before that it was mostly unmanned. Border Patrol started in 2003.
By looking at the history of these borders and border walls, you begin to think about how artificial and arbitrary these divisions are that feel so entrenched and even inevitable. She argues that borders are not lines, they're gradients: there's a large swath of land where cultures and countries mix.
Wapner introduces a lot of ideas from different scientific fields that relate to border walls. Some of these feel like a bit of a stretch, but they’re all very thought provoking. For example, there are actually "border cells" in animals' brains: cells that recognize walls and barriers, the edges of our movement, and Wapner argues that by living against a wall, our brains are essentially always firing these cells, and making us feel like we’re trapped.
She also looks at places (like Berlin) where walls have been removed, and how long the impact remains. In Berlin, it’s called the "mental wall": the effect the wall still has on people 15 years after unification--including driving routes as if the wall is still these.
Some more fascinating facts I learned:
- People who have positive associations with a place will estimate that it's closer to them than people with negative associations.
- In Lima, Peru, a concrete wall separates the wealthy and poor neighborhoods. The poor residents call it the Wall of Shame: poor workers have to travel long distances around the wall to go to work, some kids have never been on the other side.
Wall Disease troubles the idea of borders and countries, pointing out that this is an idea rooted in a specific place (Europe) and time (17th centwaury onwards)--as opposed to empires, dynasties, nomadic regions, city states, etc that are allied by allegiance to a leader, or family bonds, or trade relationships. It was only after 1914 that travel required a passport (though the Chinese Exclusion Act was an exception to free movement)--that only changed after WWI.
I think this is a really important book because it makes the reader question the existence of borders and walls, which have become so normalized, as if borders are natural. Wapner asks us to question how we hold the “artificial construction of national borders in our minds and how they shape the way we think about the world and our place within it”
(As an aside, it was very weird to read a book that mentions COVID-19. I’m not ready for that yet.)
This was an excellent thought experiment of a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.
April 30, 2023
This is an amazing book. Wapner uses a unique mixture of history, politics, and neuroscience to reframe how we think about the modern concept of national borders, breaking it down to fundamental terms of humanity and empathy. It is astonishing how much perspective is squeezed into such a slim volume.
September 5, 2023
I wish everyone would read this book. Much of the research that the author did herself took place about an hour’s drive from where I live. Many things I read in this book were a shock, many more felt like a confirmation of emotions, internal reactions, and mindsets that I’ve noticed in myself over the last four years. I don’t know what the solution is, but I can confirm this: borders cause harm, and living near one has significant, negative consequences on overall health and well-being. I would love to see this subject tackled more in-depth.
January 24, 2021
I'm so sorry Jessica, I really LOVED Philedelphia Chromosome... But this book didn't make the cut :( I read halfway through the book and couldn't finish the rest. It was full of fun little interesting facts about border history, but it wasn't interesting to me at all.
December 31, 2020
It is very short, but impactful. There is so much further to each of her discussions, but each short chapter provides a specific point about the harm-- beyond the obvious-- of border walls and the politicians who exploit our emotions.
January 10, 2021
A haunting - if a bit dry - look at border walls and their impact on the human psyche.
February 9, 2024
This read really gets you thinking - I was assigned to read it while completing my masters degree and never did. I clearly should have while in that class!
June 18, 2021
Short and a little uneven (perhaps because the author's research was partly interrupted by the COVID pandemic), but thought-provoking. Especially where Wapner delves into her area of expertise, i.e the science/psychology of living along and/or with a fortified border (she's a science journalist), she presents a compelling argument—an argument I wish she had fleshed out more. Still, a worthwhile (and quick) read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews