REVIEW: Constructing Disability after the Great War: Blind Veterans in the Progressive Era, by Evan P. Sullivan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024

Evan Sullivan’s Constructing Disability After the Great War provides a compelling examination of how Progressive Era cultural constructions of ability and disability shaped the lived experiences of blind veterans after World War I. Sullivan argues that media representations of blind veterans played a dual role—both exacerbating the economic, physical, and psychological struggles of disabled veterans and reinforcing state-driven norms of productivity and self-reliance. By situating his work within the historiographies of disabled veterans, nation-state formation, and disability studies, Sullivan challenges prevailing interpretations that emphasize federal indifference, instead highlighting how the media functioned as an apparatus of state control.