The exchange of sex for money is often cited as the first profession, and it is certainly the most controversial — from Eve and Lilith to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the prostitute has been a lightning rod for changing notions of love, sexual identity, morality, and gender. Now eminent historian Nils Johan Ringdal delivers a magisterial, extremely readable world history of this most maligned, and most persistent, form of human commerce.

Beginning with the epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and ancient cultures from Greece to India and beyond, Love for Sale takes the reader on a tour through the entire recorded history of prostitution around the globe up to the modern red-light district. It shows how different societies have viewed and dealt with prostitutes. It uncovers the first manuals of sex and seduction and tells the stories of the British Empire's campaigns against prostitution in India and the "comfort women" who served the armies in the Pacific theater of World War II. It closes with the rise of the sex-workers' rights movement and "sex-positive" feminism, and a realistic look at the true risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day.

Love for Sale spans a wide historical swath armed with a lively wit and no-nonsense grasp of sex that recalls Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae.

"[An] enlightening and entertaining piece of work....Social history at its poppiest." Kirkus Reviews

"Ringdal assembles a wealth of fascinating facts to render a panoramic view of the complex global history of prostitution. Writing with respect, candor, and wit....Ringdal's admiration for successful prostitutes is tempered by his tacit recognition that most prostitutes' lives are wretched at best." Donna Seaman, Booklist

"Contains enough scholarly detail to allow one to employ the 'I read Playboy for the articles' defense." Jared Paul Stern, New York Post

"[An] entertaining look at attitudes toward the 'world's oldest profession'....[Ringdal] uses his subject as a springboard for exploring the ever-changing notions of love, sexual identity, morality and gender among various cultures." Nan Goldberg, Newark Sunday Star-Ledger

An authoritative and entertaining world history of "the world's oldest profession," from the Whore of Babylon and Mary Magdalene to The Happy Hooker and the contemporary sex-worker movement