Overview

How have our attitudes to hair changed over time? In what ways have new technologies influenced hair-related practices and beliefs? Is hair just about fashion or does it express social, spiritual, and cultural meanings? In a work that spans nearly 3,000 years these ambitious questions are addressed by 60 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material they illustrate trends and nuances of the culture of hair in Western societies from ancient times to the present. Volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make the set as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the reader the choice to gain an overview of a period by reading one volume, or to follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. The six volumes cover: 1 - Antiquity (600 BCE to 800 CE); 2 - Middle Ages (800 to 1450); 3 -Renaissance (1450 to 1650); 4 - Age of Enlightenment (1650 to 1800); 5 - Age of Empire (1800 to 1920); 6 - Modern Age (1920 to 2000+). Themes (and chapter titles) are: Religion and Ritualized Belief; Self and Society; Fashion and Adornment; Production and Practice; Health and Hygiene; Gender and Sexuality; Race and Ethnicity; Class and Social Status; and Cultural Representations. The page extent for the pack is approximately 1792pp. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors and an Introduction and concludes with Notes, Bibliography, and an Index. The Cultural Histories Series A Cultural History of Hair is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.

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9781474232128

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Reviews

A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair ... There is plenty to inform and intrigue here, partly because the study of hair demands an exhilarating disciplinary range: from the art of cuts and colours, the history of scissors, razors and combs and the sociology of barbershops, to the semiotics of hair pulling and lock tugging, the ethnography of Afros , and the sexual politics of boyish bobs ... The volumes appeal to period-specific scholars, but also slot together, forming a continuous, braided history. * Times Literary Supplement *

Author Information

Geraldine Biddle-Perry is Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK.

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