Description:Faces are said to be an index of character, the most public part of us. Christopher Oldstone-Moore proposes that the history of men is literally written on their faces, and his book makes it easy to see how historical eras can be identified by facial hair—think of Hadrian’s Rome, or the kings and aristocrats of the high Middle Ages, or Tudor period “spade beards,” or the Victorian period in England (and also the U.S. at the same time—Walt Whitman sneered that “washes and razors for foo-foos . . . for me, freckles and a bristling beard”). The result, here, is a consistently fascinating “male-pattern history.” We witness a long-running battle by men (and a few women) to eradicate or shape the hair on their faces. Shaving plays as prominent a role in this history as beards do since the basic language of facial hair is built on the contrasts of shaved and unshaved hair; Oldstone-Moore insists we must take the long view to understand the underlying influences working on the male face. We are treated to a most sweeping history indeed, from the beards of Mesopotamia and Egypt to contemporary metrosexuals, Brooklyn-style hipsters, athletic teams (Red Sox, for sure, but also, this year, both Kansas City and San Francisco). Beard movements (instituted to combat what some men saw as a world of “woman-faced men”) alternate with shaven faces, notably the period ushered in by Alexander the Great or the medieval Church ideal of clean-shaven clergy. Is it a sign of loss of control over the self to be bearded (cf. Enlightenment views), or, contrarily, is a huge beard a signal of authority, health, an ultimate symbol of masculinity (cf. Victorian presumptions). Nowadays, the fear of beards is receding, facial hair is taken to be a token of entrepreneurial daring, and beards are becoming acceptable in the boardroom. Want more signs? New York trendoids are paying $8000 and up for facial hair transplants (to fill out their patchy beards). Beards are back in business. We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair. To get started finding Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed. Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.
Pages
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Format
PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Release
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ISBN
022628400X
Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair
Description: Faces are said to be an index of character, the most public part of us. Christopher Oldstone-Moore proposes that the history of men is literally written on their faces, and his book makes it easy to see how historical eras can be identified by facial hair—think of Hadrian’s Rome, or the kings and aristocrats of the high Middle Ages, or Tudor period “spade beards,” or the Victorian period in England (and also the U.S. at the same time—Walt Whitman sneered that “washes and razors for foo-foos . . . for me, freckles and a bristling beard”). The result, here, is a consistently fascinating “male-pattern history.” We witness a long-running battle by men (and a few women) to eradicate or shape the hair on their faces. Shaving plays as prominent a role in this history as beards do since the basic language of facial hair is built on the contrasts of shaved and unshaved hair; Oldstone-Moore insists we must take the long view to understand the underlying influences working on the male face. We are treated to a most sweeping history indeed, from the beards of Mesopotamia and Egypt to contemporary metrosexuals, Brooklyn-style hipsters, athletic teams (Red Sox, for sure, but also, this year, both Kansas City and San Francisco). Beard movements (instituted to combat what some men saw as a world of “woman-faced men”) alternate with shaven faces, notably the period ushered in by Alexander the Great or the medieval Church ideal of clean-shaven clergy. Is it a sign of loss of control over the self to be bearded (cf. Enlightenment views), or, contrarily, is a huge beard a signal of authority, health, an ultimate symbol of masculinity (cf. Victorian presumptions). Nowadays, the fear of beards is receding, facial hair is taken to be a token of entrepreneurial daring, and beards are becoming acceptable in the boardroom. Want more signs? New York trendoids are paying $8000 and up for facial hair transplants (to fill out their patchy beards). Beards are back in business. We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair. To get started finding Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed. Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.