Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery

Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery

$15.00 AUD

Availability: in stock at our Melbourne warehouse.

NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.

Author: Elizabeth Haiken

Format: Hardback

Number of Pages: 288


Traces the quest for physical perfection through surgery from the turn of the century to the present. Drawing on a range of sources, including personal accounts, medical journals and beauty guides, the text reveals how culture came to see cosmetic surgery as a panacea for both individual and societal problems. As Americans and their surgeons linked the significance of "normal standards of beauty to social adjustment and economic success, they also linked "undesirable" characteristics to psychological conditions such as the inferiority complex, for which cosmetic surgery appeared to offer a cure. The book also explores the new meanings with which the era of plastic surgery endowed race, ethnicity, ageing and femininity, from Fanny Brice's 1923 nose operation to Michael Jackson's race- and gender-bending transformation of the late-1980s.
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Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.

Author: Elizabeth Haiken

Format: Hardback

Number of Pages: 288


Traces the quest for physical perfection through surgery from the turn of the century to the present. Drawing on a range of sources, including personal accounts, medical journals and beauty guides, the text reveals how culture came to see cosmetic surgery as a panacea for both individual and societal problems. As Americans and their surgeons linked the significance of "normal standards of beauty to social adjustment and economic success, they also linked "undesirable" characteristics to psychological conditions such as the inferiority complex, for which cosmetic surgery appeared to offer a cure. The book also explores the new meanings with which the era of plastic surgery endowed race, ethnicity, ageing and femininity, from Fanny Brice's 1923 nose operation to Michael Jackson's race- and gender-bending transformation of the late-1980s.