A cultural history of the human bodyVolumes 1-6 - v. 1-6

This is a hardback set. "A Cultural History of The Human Body" presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present.

The set of six volumes covers 2800 years of the human body as a physical, social, spiritual and cultural object.

It includes: Volume 1: "Ancient Greece to Early Christianity" (500AD-1000BC); Volume 2: "The Medieval Age" (1000-1400); Volume 3: "The Renaissance" (1400-1650); Volume 4: "The Enlightenment" (1650-1800)"; Volume 5: "The Age of Empire" (1800-1920); Volume 6: "The Age of Change" (1920-2000, including a discussion of bodies of The Future) As the same issues are central to any understanding of the human body throughout history, each volume shares the same structure, with chapters in each volume analyzing the same issues and themes.

In this way each volume can be read individually to cover a specific period and individual chapters can be read across volumes to follow a theme across history.Each volume explores birth and death; health and disease; sex; medical knowledge and technology; popular beliefs; beauty and concepts of the ideal; gender, race, class, age, disability and disease; bodies and the bestial, the divine and the natural; cultural representations of the body; the self and society.

The full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on the human body through history.