In this thoroughly reported, eye-opening work, science journalist Jessica Wapner reveals the unforeseen mental health effects of security walls—including depression and anxiety, despondence, excitability, suicidal ideation, paranoia, and more. Doctors first noticed these conditions proliferating among people who lived along the Berlin Wall, and they gave the overarching affliction a name: wall disease. Wapner builds on this research, following the trail of psychological harm around the world today. Weaving together interviews with those living up against walls and expert testimonies from psychologists, economists, geographers, and other specialists, Wapner explores the growing epidemic of wall disease—and illuminates how neither those "outside" nor "inside" are immune.