A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire

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. 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

Michael Sappol is Visiting Researcher at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is a historian of visual culture and performance of medicine and science. He was Historian, Scholar-in-Residence and Exhibition Curator at the National Library of Medicine, USA between 1998 and 2016.

Summary

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.

Product details

• Authors: Stephen P Rice, Stephen P. Rice, Michael Sappol, Michael Rice Sappol
• Assisted by: Stephen P. Rice (Editor), Rice Stephen P. (Editor), Sappol (Editor), Michael Sappol (Editor), Sappol Michael (Editor)
• Publisher: Berg Publishers Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.03.2012
• EAN: 9781847887924
• ISBN: 978-1-84788-792-4
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: The Cultural Histories; Cultural Histories; The Cultural Histories Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Cultural Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, Social and cultural history, Gender studies, gender groups