Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found [Paperback]

The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses,encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body.It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outerworld. Yet there is a dark side to the heads preeminence, one that has, in the courseof human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting.So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitatedhuman heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken headsspurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanesehome to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined headof Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues,from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores ourmacabre fixation with severed heads.Larson delves into the grotesque yet wildly fascinating topic of decapitation& [Her] lively, conversational tone turns these morbid objects into something more meaningful than a mere expression of the macabre.A brilliantly original exploration of what it is to be human. . . . Herfluently sinuous prose is by turns meditative and disquietingand always utterlycompelling.[W]ide-ranging and thoughtful& In an age where so many taboos are fading, the severed head retains its dreadful and sacred power.No need to explain why this nonfiction book made the top of my list& Despite the ghoulish subject, this is a closely researched, indeed, scholarly study of the bizarre customs of hunting, collecting, trading, displaying and otherwise bonding with other peoples heads.This idiosyncratic history of decapitation& jumps between historical and recent examples, from the invention of the guillotine in the French Revolution to Damien Hirsts self-portrait in a morgue& This morbid obsession, [Larson] argues, is common to all culturesa realization that dawned on her when she worked at ló