Immaculate Forms (Hardcover)

Helen King

ISBN 10: 1541606531 / ISBN 13: 9781541606531

Published by Basic Books, 2025

About this Item

Hardcover. "Never has medical history been more entertaining" (Dr Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible) than in this turbulent history of women's bodies from classical Greece to the modern age A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb. Across history, these body parts have told women who they are and what they should do. Although knowledge of each part has changed through time, none of them tells a simple story. The way they work and in some cases even their existence have been debated. They can be seen as powerful or as disgusting, as relevant only to reproduction or as sources of sexual pleasure. In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping over these key organs that have been used to define "woman," illustrating how conceptions of women's bodies have owed more to imagination and myth than to observation and science. Throughout history, the way we understand the body has always been debated, and it is still shaped by human intervention and read according to cultural interpretations. Astute and engaging, Immaculate Forms is for everyone who has wondered what history has to say about today's raging debates over the human body and who is "really" female. "Originally published in 2024 by Profile Books in Great Britain"--Title page verso. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781541606531

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Immaculate Forms (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1541606531
• ISBN 13: 9781541606531
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

“Never has medical history been more entertaining” (Dr Jennifer Gunter, author of The Vagina Bible) than in this turbulent history of women’s bodies from classical Greece to the modern age

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

Breasts, clitoris, hymen, and womb. Across history, these body parts have told women who they are and what they should do. Although knowledge of each part has changed through time, none of them tells a simple story. The way they work and in some cases even their existence have been debated. They can be seen as powerful or as disgusting, as relevant only to reproduction or as sources of sexual pleasure.  
  
In Immaculate Forms, classicist and historian Helen King explores the symbiotic relationship between religion and medicine and their twinned history of gatekeeping over these key organs that have been used to define “woman,” illustrating how conceptions of women’s bodies have owed more to imagination and myth than to observation and science. Throughout history, the way we understand the body has always been debated, and it is still shaped by human intervention and read according to cultural interpretations.  
  
Astute and engaging, Immaculate Forms is for everyone who has wondered what history has to say about today’s raging debates over the human body and who is “really” female.

About the Author

Helen King is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at The Open University. She is an elected member of the General Synod of the Church of England, where she is vice chair of Together, which campaigns on a range of discrimination issues including discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality. She is the author of Hippocrates’ Woman and has published extensively on the history of women’s health. She lives in Oxfordshire, England.