A History of the Breast - Hardcover

Yalom, Marilyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679434593 ISBN 13: 9780679434597

Publisher: Knopf, 1997

Synopsis

This engrossing work of original research is the first to consider how the breast has been perceived in the Western world from ancient days to the present. Yalom investigates how the breast has been understood in religion, in medicine, and in psychoanalysis. 352 pp. 15,000 print.

About this title

Review:

What's in a breast? That depends on who's asking, says Marilyn Yalom, author of this scholarly, illustrated treatise on the breast in Western society. "Babies see food. Men see sex. Doctors see disease. Businesspeople see dollar signs." Breasts have been denounced as wanton, or idealized as givers of power or life in images of Egyptian goddess Isis nursing pharoahs; sturdy, maternal Mother Russia; or the more eroticized, bare-breasted symbol of republican ideals in France. Psychologists, religious leaders, advertisers, and pornographers have rhapsodized over, vilified, and used breasts to sell everything from war to Cadillacs. And, finally, women have seen in them pleasure, power, sustenance, fear, or failure to measure up.

From the Publisher:

This is the sort of book that I would pick off the shelf immediately just upon seeing the title. What could be more fascinating than an exploration of society's obsession with this particular part of the female anatomy? Marilyn Yalom's meticulously well-researched text spans "25,000 years of ideas, images, and perceptions of the female breast--in religion, psychology, politics, society and the arts." That's quite an undertaking and Yalom succeeds brilliantly in all aspects. It is both in-depth and readable; Yalom is as much a writer as she is a researcher. A History of the Breast is the perfect springboard to a deeper understanding of the often very dark cultural significance of the female form.

-Kelly Lamb, Ballantine Marketing Coordinator

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679434593
• ISBN 13: 9780679434597
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 331