A Cultural History of the Human Body in the Age of Empire [Paperback]

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 Empirepresents 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.

Illustrations
Series Preface

Introduction: Empires in Bodies; Bodies in Empires
Michael Sappol, National Library of Medicine, USA

1 Birth and Death under the Sign of Thomas Malthus
Thomas Laqueur, University of California, USA and Lisa Cody, Claremont McKenna College, USA

2 Medical Perspectives on Health and Disease
Michael Worboys, University of Manchester, UK

3 Othering Sexual Perversity: England, Empire, Race, and Sexual Science
Richard C. Sha, American University, USA

4 Medical Science, Technology, and the Body
Chandak Sengoopta, University of London, UK

5 Popular Beliefs and the Body: A Nation of Good Animals
Pamela K. Gilbert, University of Florida, USA

6 The Normal, the Ideal, and the Beautiful: Perfect Bodies during the Age of Empire
Michael Hau, Monash University, Australia

7 Empire, Boundaries, and Bodies: Colonial Tattooing Practices
Clare Anderson, University of Warwick, UK

8 Smallpox, Vaccination, and the Marked Body
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