Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery [Hardcover]

Gilman tells a timely, yet previously largely untold tale. By presenting the complex interaction of ideas, social relations, technology, psychiatry (and the madness of doctors as well as patients), the author makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of our times.

It is a 'must' for anyone concerned with our present cultural obsession with beauty and the makability of the body.

A richly illustrated, delightfully crafted cultural history of aesthetic surgery. . . .

Rich in both detail and fascinating illustrations, Gilman's history shows aesthetic surgery as a response to the exigencies of contemporary cultures.

Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centres for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. The author of this text seeks to explain why by presenting a systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic sugery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in 7th-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass", to be seen as a member of a group with which they want or need to identify.;The book draws on a range of sources. Gilman discuses Nietzsche, Yeats and Darwin, grisly details, Michael Jackson and Barbara Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. It contains dozens of images of people before, during and after surgery.

"An extraordinarily learned, endlessly fascinating book that deals with a hot contemporary subject."--Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

"This work is wide-ranging, well-informed, and stimulating in its scholarship. It's also provocative--not in the sense of being outrageous, unbalanced, or politically incorrect but in challenging conventional thinking and forcing readers to question their unspoken assumptions. I found this an engrossing read."--Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

"Sander Gilman has delivered exactly what the title promises: a cultural history of his subject. By trawling a remarkably wide range of material, from surgical papers to novels, high art and films, he has produced a nuanced history of an important discipline within modern surgery. As with all of Gilman's work, the marriage of text and image contributes much to the impact of this major contribution to our understanding of that most welcome intimate of subjects: the history of the body."--W. F. Bynum, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

"Sander Gilman has done it again. This is a splendid book, rich in interpretation and rich with refrences. The European aspect of the history of cosmetic surgery has not been so fully developed before Gilman brought together the cultural and the medical parts of the story. His wide-ranging references are themselves are worth the price of admission."--Gert H. Brieger, Johns Hopkins University

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.