The History of Men

Essays on the History of American and British Masculinities

By Michael S. Kimmel

Subjects: Sociology, Men's Studies, History, Gender Studies
Paperback : 9780791463406, 272 pages, March 2005
Hardcover : 9780791463390, 272 pages, March 2005

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Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Invisible Masculinity
American Masculinities
2 Born to Run: Fantasies of Male Escape from Rip Van Winkle to Robert Bly
3 Consuming Manhood: The Feminization of American Culture and the Recreation of the Male Body, 1832–1920
4 Baseball and the Reconstitution of American Masculinity, 1880–1920
5 Men’s Responses to Feminism at the Turn of the Century
6 The Cult of Masculinity: American Social Character and the Legacy of the Cowboy
7 From “Conscience and Common Sense” to “Feminism for Men”: Pro-Feminist Men’s Rhetoric of Support for Women’s Equality
British Masculinities
8 From Lord and Master to Cuckold and Fop: Masculinity in 17th-Century England
Mundus Foppensis and The Levellers
9 “Greedy Kisses” and “Melting Extasy”: Notes on the Homosexual World of Early 18th-Century England as Found in Love Letters Between a certain late Nobleman and the famous Mr. Wilson
Love Letters Between a certain late Nobleman and the famous Mr. Wilson . . .
Notes
References
Index

A collection of historical articles and essays by a pioneer in the field of masculinity studies.

Description

In this collection, one of the world's leading scholars in the field of masculinity studies explores the historical construction of American and British masculinities. Tracing the emergence of American and British masculinities, the forms they have taken, and their development over time, Michael S. Kimmel analyzes the various ways that the ideology of masculinity—the cultural meaning of manhood—has been shaped by the course of historical events, and, in turn, how ideas about masculinity have also served to shape those historical events. He also considers newly emerging voices of previously marginalized groups such as women, the working class, people of color, gay men, and lesbians to explore the marginalized and de-centered notions of masculinity and the political processes and dynamics that have enabled this marginalization to occur.

Michael S. Kimmel is Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. He has written and edited many books, including The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality, also published by SUNY Press, and The Gendered Society, Second Edition. He is also the editor of Men and Masculinities, a leading journal in the field.