Synopses & Reviews
A Cultural History of The Human Body presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers 2800 years of the human body as a physical, social, spiritual and cultural object. Volume 1: A Cultural History of the Human Body in Antiquity (1300 BCE - 500 CE) Edited by Daniel Garrison, Northwestern University. Volume 2: A Cultural History of the Human Body in The Medieval Age (500 - 1500) Edited by Linda Kalof, Michigan State University Volume 3: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Renaissance (1400 - 1650) Edited by Linda Kalof, Michigan State University and William Bynum, University College London. Volume 4: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Enlightenment (1600 - 1800) Edited by Carole Reeves, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London. Volume 5: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire (1800 - 1920) Edited by Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine in Washington, DC, and Stephen P. Rice, Ramapo College of New Jersey. Volume 6: A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Modern Age (1900-21st Century) Edited by Ivan Crozier, University of Edinburgh, and Chiara Beccalossi, University of Queensland. Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 1. Birth and Death 2. Health and Disease 3. Sex and Sexuality 4. Medical Knowledge and Technology 5. Popular Beliefs 6. Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal 7. Marked Bodies I: Gender, Race, Class, Age, Disability and Disease 8. Marked Bodies II: the Bestial, the Divine and the Natural 9. Cultural Representations of the Body 10. The Self and Society This means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Superbly illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on the human body through history.
Synopsis
The “long nineteenth century” was an age of empire and empire builders, of state formation and expansion, and of colonial and imperial wars and conquest throughout most of the world. It was also an age that saw enormous changes in how people gave meaning to and made sense of the human body. Spanning the period from 1800 to 1920, this volume takes up a host of topics in the cultural history of the human body, including the rise of modern medicine and debates about vaccination, the representation of sexual perversity, developments in medical technology and new conceptions of bodily perfection.
A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire presents an overview of the period with essays on the centrality of the human body in birth and death, health and disease, sexuality, beauty and concepts of the ideal, bodies marked by gender, race, class and disease, cultural representations and popular beliefs, and self and society.
About the Author
William Bynum is Emeritus Professor of the History of Medicine at University College London and author of many books, including
Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century and
History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction.
Linda Kalof is Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University and author of Looking at Animals in Human History and editor of A Cultural History of Animals.
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Series Preface
Introduction: Empires in Bodies; Bodies in Empires
Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine, USA
1 Birth and Death under the Sign of Thomas Malthus
Thomas Laqueur, University of California, USA and Lisa Cody, Claremont McKenna College, USA
2 Medical Perspectives on Health and Disease
Michael Worboys, University of Manchester, UK
3 Othering Sexual Perversity: England, Empire, Race, and Sexual Science
Richard C. Sha, American University, USA
4 Medical Science, Technology, and the Body
Chandak Sengoopta, University of London, UK
5 Popular Beliefs and the Body: "A Nation of Good Animals"
Pamela K. Gilbert, University of Florida, USA
6 The Normal, the Ideal, and the Beautiful: Perfect Bodies during the Age of Empire
Michael Hau, Monash University, Australia
7 Empire, Boundaries, and Bodies: Colonial Tattooing Practices
Clare Anderson, University of Warwick, UK
8 Smallpox, Vaccination, and the Marked Body
Nadja Durbach, University of Utah, USA
9 Picturing Bodies in the Nineteenth Century
Stephen P. Rice, Ramapo College, USA
10 From Mimetic Machines to Digital Organisms: The Transformation of the Human Motor
Anson Rabinbach, Princeton University, USA
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index