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Review
'Friedman proves - with wit and learning - that our most significant organ is the one below the belt, not the one above the neck.' Independent 'A Mind of its Own is educational and entertaining by virtue of an amazing amount of information gathered from a wide range of mythical medical, cultural and scientific, historical and humorous sources.' BMJ 'A Mind of Its Own is fascinating - in other words, as powerful and intriguing as an erection.' --Guardian
Review
'A serious, witty, erudite history - the book we have been crying out for all this time.' Literary Review '...you're going to find this book far more than just another collection of wicked willy statistics to be kept in the downstairs loo. For by Friedman's fascinating account the history of the penis is (well. almost) the history of civilisation itself.' Spectator 'A Mind of Its Own is fascinating - in other words, as powerful and intriguing as an erection.' Guardian 'Stimulating.' Time Out 'It's engrossing and illuminating and fiendishly intelligent and well-researched. Having read every book currently published about man's best friend, I can tell you that this excellent tome is the only one worth buying. Erotic Review 'Friedman proves - with wit and learning - that our most significant organ is the one below the belt. not the one above the neck.' Independent 'A Mind of its Own is educational and entertaining by virtue of an amazing amount of information gathered from a wide range of mythical medical. cultural and scientific, historical and humorous sources.' BMJ 'This book is full of marvellous insights. but at the same time raises serious questions. Every woman should read it and so should everyone with a penis.' New Statesman 'A serious yet entertaining book that weaves together an enormous amount of material.' Publishers Weekly 'Everything you always wanted to know about man's closest friend.' Kirkus Reviews
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have found this book hugely entertaining, if at times digressive, and well informed. It is crammed full of well researched and cited sources. Above all it is tongue in cheek, ironic (as the subject from a historical perception should be seen) and humorous. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read up on the story of the attitudes toward the penis. And why it absolutely has to be hidden or denied its existence in some quarters of thee world (I've always wondered why the US tries to call it something else...). Nut nevertheless the book is also written from a US point of view, where some penis liberation politics is necessary.
As someone who has a degree in theology I had to smile at the old testament rite of swearing 'in the thigh' - well basically you had to hold the other males penis - our professors always dismissed this or started to umm and aaa... The Greek references are also quite enlightening for people who only have a History Channel point of view.
The book is jam-packed with interesting facts (some are opinions - nevertheless)and some amusing, also sometimes blood-curdling anecdotes, from history, easy to read and does not moralise or patronise. It is a frank work about the male member and a good one. Particularly the chapter on the "black male penis fright" was enlightening and candid - with the highlights of the horror lynchings and castrations.
There are chapters on Freud and feminism - those of us who witnessed the 'take back the night' marches on campus will remember. And much more...
The author doesn't claim to have written a scientific masterwork, which is why I certainly don't agree with the previous reviewer who strikes me as not having read the book at all. The page he alludes to is within the first 5o pages (not the first page of the book) and taken out of context in that review. It is actually no howler at all when read in contxt.
The fun side of the book made me think of an advert I saw in Switzerland where they were seeking a "Kader mit Glied" (it should have read "Kadermitglied" - executive/professional member) but that typo meant that what they were actually looking for was close to the ambiguous English translation - an executive person with a penis/shaft. Or the graffito that was visible on the Berlin Reichstag until not too long ago which said: The Russian Sword in the German Sheath. Now, what has a mind of its own again all over the world?
It's fun and informative.
As someone who has a degree in theology I had to smile at the old testament rite of swearing 'in the thigh' - well basically you had to hold the other males penis - our professors always dismissed this or started to umm and aaa... The Greek references are also quite enlightening for people who only have a History Channel point of view.
The book is jam-packed with interesting facts (some are opinions - nevertheless)and some amusing, also sometimes blood-curdling anecdotes, from history, easy to read and does not moralise or patronise. It is a frank work about the male member and a good one. Particularly the chapter on the "black male penis fright" was enlightening and candid - with the highlights of the horror lynchings and castrations.
There are chapters on Freud and feminism - those of us who witnessed the 'take back the night' marches on campus will remember. And much more...
The author doesn't claim to have written a scientific masterwork, which is why I certainly don't agree with the previous reviewer who strikes me as not having read the book at all. The page he alludes to is within the first 5o pages (not the first page of the book) and taken out of context in that review. It is actually no howler at all when read in contxt.
The fun side of the book made me think of an advert I saw in Switzerland where they were seeking a "Kader mit Glied" (it should have read "Kadermitglied" - executive/professional member) but that typo meant that what they were actually looking for was close to the ambiguous English translation - an executive person with a penis/shaft. Or the graffito that was visible on the Berlin Reichstag until not too long ago which said: The Russian Sword in the German Sheath. Now, what has a mind of its own again all over the world?
It's fun and informative.
33 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The first page I opened this book at contained an incredible howler. "By...1275, the penis had virtually disappeared from Western art for eight hundred years."
This is completely false, because hundreds of Romanesque churches (in France, Spain and England) have penises, ithyphallic males, megaphallic males and even masturbating males plain to see upon them (see the website www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/satan1.htm to check this out). So this book lacks basic scholarship, for a start.
It also lacks focus, is given to mere anecdote, and has pathetic pictures. Like many penises, it does not live up to its promise. I shall donate my copy to the local library.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
24 reviews
81 of 83 people found the following review helpful
A humorous but well-documented history of the penis
18 May 2002
Format:Hardcover
It is hard to write a book about the penis without dealing in euphemisms and double entendres. Yet this book uses them well to show the role the penis has played in the development of western culture. The book is a cultural history of the penis, and explores human (mostly men's) thinking about the male reproductive organs.
The first chapter, The Demon Rod, explores the moral view of the penis as it developed from ancient times through Christianized Western European thought. Is the penis a gift of the gods or man's link with the devil? This is the question that is explored in this chapter. From the phallic cults of ancient Sumer, Egypt, Greece and Rome, through the Jewish circumcision pact, to the demonization of the penis by Christian thinkers like Augustine, the role of the penis in the relationship of man to his god is explored.
Chapter Two, The Gear Shift, starts with Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical dissections and examines the early attempts of western science to discover the biological rather than the mythical aspects of the penis. The period covered is the 16th through the 19th century. Most of the science, though well-intentioned, is colored by the moral thinking of the time. Although much is learned, many false theories coexist with newly discovered anatomical facts.
The next chapter is called The Measuring Stick and is a look at the theories surrounding Racism and penis size. It outlines the history of the belief that males of African heritage have greater penile size than any other race. From Noah to Mapplethorp, the fascination and fear associated with this concept and the racial theories that developed along side it are well laid out.
The Cigar is Chapter Four and it explores the influence of the penis on Freud and psychoanalytical thought. Here we move from the physical manifestation of the penis to its effects on the psyche, both in the individual and the culture. With quotes from Freud's writings, we see his development of the theories of the Oedipus Complex and the vaginal orgasm, and their effects on modern society.
Chapter Five, entitled The Battering Ram, is a look at the feminist reaction of the 1960s to the Freudian emphasis on the penis and vaginal orgasm. These feminist thinkers shift the focus to the clitoris as the center of satisfying sexual relationships for women. From Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique to Andrea Dworkin's Pornography, the link between the penis and sexual violence in feminist writings is outlined in wonderful detail.
The final chapter, The Punctureproof Balloon returns to the physiological study of the penis that started in chapter two. However, this chapter picks up with the 19th Century with its quacks and misinformed physicians and takes us up to the present day's modern medical marvels. Here we see urologists taking the study of impotence away from psychoanalysts and developing medical treatments. This is a wonderful historic outline of the creation and cultural impact of Viagra and other pharmaceutical treatments for Erectile Dysfunction.
All in all this is a fascinating popular treatment of a topic that tends to either not be discussed or is discussed so informally as to have little regard for the facts. This book tells it all and backs up the facts with 35 pages of Notes to the bibliographic sources. To help the reader find the facts a 12 page Index ends the book. Eight pages of black and white pictures illustrate some of the topics described in the book. This book is entertaining and informative reading for anyone who has ever wanted to know about this organ and its role in society.
45 of 48 people found the following review helpful
It really rises to the occasion!
31 Oct 2001
Format:Hardcover
Feminists have been bashing "phallocentric" culture for a couple of decades now, but most have not bothered to examine or explicate the central element of such culture, namely the male organ itself. David M. Friedman has written a well-researched, admirably forthright account of Western culture's alternating aversion toward and obsession with the penis. Friedman tracks this evolution from the semen-drenched religious texts of ancient Sumer (where the word for semen is the same as water, and the gods literally bathe the world in sperm) through the ancient Greeks and then how the organ was "demonized" by St. Augustine and the Catholic church. Other chapters consider how racism has centered for centuries on white male fear of macrophallic African men, as well as Freud's attempt to "universalize" penis envy and castration anxiety. While one might quibble with a scholarly detail here and there (notably Friedman's acceptance of Foucault's theories about Greek sexuality, which have been notably contradicted by more recent scholarship), this is such a well-researched and engagingly written study that it deserves to be widely read. Men and women alike will gain a clearer understanding of why we put fig-leaves on statues and why a cigar is not always just a good smoke.
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
NOT a sex book, a cultural history, as per the title
5 Jan 2002
Format:Hardcover
Though the store had it filed under pornography, this book is not at all pertinent to that smarmiest of genres. It's a cultural summary of the significance of the male genitals around the world and throughout history. Sometimes anthropological, sometimes psychological, sometimes medical (perhaps to a fault), and often exhibiting wry humor, the book is modest in scope and level of analysis, and certainly a good read.
My personal interests, as an anthropologist, were the sections which discuss the ancient and religious history of the genitals, up through the Middle Ages and into the well-meaning pseudo-science of the nineteenth century. Not so engrossing, I thought, are the later chapters. "The Measuring Stick" goes a bit too far and graphically into homosexual fantasy, and the last chapter was a downright disappointment, as its discussion of modern views on the male genitals becomes a scientific tract on testicular surgery with way too many medical details and terminology.
In the end, the book begins well, ends not so well, and in my opinion, is well-written enough throughout that it remains for the most part pleasing.
My personal interests, as an anthropologist, were the sections which discuss the ancient and religious history of the genitals, up through the Middle Ages and into the well-meaning pseudo-science of the nineteenth century. Not so engrossing, I thought, are the later chapters. "The Measuring Stick" goes a bit too far and graphically into homosexual fantasy, and the last chapter was a downright disappointment, as its discussion of modern views on the male genitals becomes a scientific tract on testicular surgery with way too many medical details and terminology.
In the end, the book begins well, ends not so well, and in my opinion, is well-written enough throughout that it remains for the most part pleasing.
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