Medical Sociology, Women's Health, Reproductive & Body Issues, Surgery

Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery

Name: Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery
Author: Sander L. Gilman
ISBN: 9780691070537

by Sander L. Gilman

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Overview

Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify.

Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa.

The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

Synopsis

"An extraordinarily learned, endlessly fascinating book that deals with a hot contemporary subject."—Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

"This work is wide-ranging, well-informed, and stimulating in its scholarship. It's also provocative—not in the sense of being outrageous, unbalanced, or politically incorrect but in challenging conventional thinking and forcing readers to question their unspoken assumptions. I found this an engrossing read."—Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

"Sander Gilman has delivered exactly what the title promises: a cultural history of his subject. By trawling a remarkably wide range of material, from surgical papers to novels, high art and films, he has produced a nuanced history of an important discipline within modern surgery. As with all of Gilman's work, the marriage of text and image contributes much to the impact of this major contribution to our understanding of that most welcome intimate of subjects: the history of the body."—W. F. Bynum, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

"Sander Gilman has done it again. This is a splendid book, rich in interpretation and rich with refrences. The European aspect of the history of cosmetic surgery has not been so fully developed before Gilman brought together the cultural and the medical parts of the story. His wide-ranging references are themselves are worth the price of admission."—Gert H. Brieger, Johns Hopkins University

Economist

A Darwinian view of beauty is [held] by Sander Gilman, who treats plastic surgery as part of the long story of man s desire to pass as a member of the dominant group....The face you deserve need not be the face you grow into, but the face you can afford.

About the Author, Sander L. Gilman

Gilman, Sander L. (Univ of Chicago)

Reviews

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Editorials

Times Literary Supplement

A [wide-ranging] and enjoyable work. . . . Gilman has an eye for detail, yet remains aware of the wider perspective. He also raises important questions. . . . In [this] rich, elegant and beautiful [book] he shows that the history of aesthetic surgery is too important to be left to the surgeons.
— Jonathan Cole

New York Review of Books

[Gilman] tells a strange, macabre, and often richly comic story of shifting desires. His book shows a dazzling European erudition. . . . There is now less furtiveness attached to aesthetic surgery. But the question remains—and Gilman asks it cleverly, humanely, and persistently—whether new appearances just gloss over old problems and often create new ones.

Booklist

A fascinating combination of text and illustration and of literary, medical, and scientific information. A thoughtful history by an author who knows his material well and has a sympathetic understanding of human beings as well as a lively sense of humor.

Isis

Rich in both detail and fascinating illustrations, Gilman's history shows aesthetic surgery as a response to the exigencies of contemporary cultures.
— Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles

Choice

Gilman's research is thorough, his analysis thoughtful, and the presentation thought-provoking.

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Making the Body Beautiful is an important contribution to our understanding of th emergence and significance of aesthetic surgery. It is a must for anyone concerned with our present cultural obsession with beauty and the makability of the body. And it provides a model for writing medical history that is not limited to charting the facts, but tries to understand their meaning as well.
— Kathy Davis

American Historical Review

A richly illustrated, delightfully crafted cultural history of aesthetic surgery . . . An informative and captivating history of our attempts to make our bodies beautiful.
— Londa Schiebinger

The New York Times

There is one theme that links all [Gilman's] work: how human beings construct images of others to define themselves. . . . [He] has been unafraid to examine areas that academics have traditionally shied away from.

The Economist Review

[A] readable and useful book. . . . Through Mr. Gilman's long lens, the search for beauty and the fashion for plastic surgery are not a contemporary ill, but something older and more universal.

The Independent

Far from the body representing immutable essences of beauty or horror, the history of aesthetic surgery confirms that the body bears witness to public ideologies of sexual and racial difference. And the body has its own invisible memories of tragedy from which, for some, aesthetic surgery offers the promise of transcendence.
— Beatrix Campbell

The New York Observer

Bravely navigating the ethnic maze with admirable aplomb, . . . [Sander Gilman] considers nearly every hyphenated group's American dream of becoming something else. He gets away with such brazenness . . . by constantly offering entertaining literary and pop culture references upon which we can all hang our hats.
— Margo Hammond

The Atlantic Monthly

With its bizarre amalgam of new developments in medicine and prevailing trends in fashion, "aesthetic surgery" is a phenomenon that begs for examination, and Gilman, as both historian and critic, proves equal to the task. . . . Face-lifts, nose jobs, liposuction, decircumcision, buttocks implants, breast augmentation, and breast reduction, among other procedures, present themselves, Gilman dryly notes, as surgical cures for what is often essentially a psychological problem—a persistent sense of discontent.
— Holly Brubach

The Antioch Review

Gilman tells a timely, yet previously largely untold tale. By presenting the complex interaction of ideas, social relations, technology, psychiatry (and the madness of doctors as well as patients), the author makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of our times.
— Erika Bourguignon

Times Literary Supplement

The Independent

The New York Observer

The Atlantic Monthly

Isis

Rich in both detail and fascinating illustrations, Gilman's history shows aesthetic surgery as a response to the exigencies of contemporary cultures.

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Making the Body Beautiful is an important contribution to our understanding of th emergence and significance of aesthetic surgery. It is a must for anyone concerned with our present cultural obsession with beauty and the makability of the body. And it provides a model for writing medical history that is not limited to charting the facts, but tries to understand their meaning as well.

American Historical Review

A richly illustrated, delightfully crafted cultural history of aesthetic surgery . . . An informative and captivating history of our attempts to make our bodies beautiful.

The Antioch Review

The Atlantic Monthly

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

David Johnson(University of California Irvine)

In this book the author chronologically and thematically traces the history of aesthetic surgery from the Renaissance to the new millennium. Aesthetic surgery is used as a lens through which to look at the contested and transgressive meanings associated with surgically induced bodily transformations. Central to the author's argument is the belief that the body can be (and is) read culturally. For the author, the body represents a site that continually acts on and is acted upon by culture; hence, the physical markers of a healthy body are in constant states of transformation. His objective is to locate the underlying racial and ethical subtexts that have shaped aesthetic surgery, and he succeeds with remarkable clarity and nuance. This is an important book to read for students who are interested in practicing aesthetic surgery. Practicing surgeons also will find the author's insights into the elective nature of aesthetic surgery as well as his sensitivity to the unique relationship between aesthetic surgeon and patient/client quite revealing. By choosing to have aesthetic surgery, for example, one both announces his or her autonomy while simultaneously abdicating it to the surgeon. Although medical professionals will certainly find the study useful, the author also wants to reach an audience of historians who are interested in the intersection between medicine, modernity, and world history. By showing the possibility of making comparisons between European and Indian medicine, he cogently argues that medicine can be a useful category of analysis in world history. The author's analysis of the ability of aesthetic surgery to allow one to ""pass"" -- to become (in)visible, seen but notseen -- is perhaps the most compelling aspect of the book. This desire can represent a challenge to authority in that aesthetic surgery allows one to cross seemingly impassable boundaries such as race and gender. Yet the author argues that the desire to change one's body represents the realization of an Enlightenment promise, made possible by modern medicine, that humans have the autonomous right to remake themselves in ways that they find fulfilling. Most impressive is the fact that, while the underlying methodology that holds the study together is incredibly sophisticated, the author maintains a lively prose that is elegant, subtle, and very readable.

Economist

A Darwinian view of beauty is [held] by Sander Gilman, who treats plastic surgery as part of the long story of man’s desire to “pass” as a member of the dominant group....The “face you deserve” need not be the face you grow into, but the face you can afford.

Publishers Weekly

An intriguing inquiry into how aesthetic surgery has evolved into a major area of modern medicine, this book combines cultural perspectives on the body beautiful with a medical chronology. Gilman (Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul, etc.), who teaches human biology at the University of Chicago, focuses extensively on the nose as the original site of aesthetic procedures. He simultaneously explores "the basic motivation for aesthetic surgery--the desire to `pass,'" starting with 16th-century surgery to rebuild the noses of syphilitics "so they would be less visible in their society"--and its cultural implications. Early debate centered on whether surgery restored function or merely catered to human vanity. The "hierarchy of races" created by some scientists in the 18th century inspired procedures to create "American noses out of Irish pug noses," while "the origin of the `correction' of the black nose is masked within medical literature [because] no reputable surgeon wanted to be seen as facilitating crossing the color bar." Gilman discusses political uses of aesthetic surgery, such as that of the Nazis to achieve the Aryan ideal, the transformation of former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke into what one commentator called "a blond, blow-dried replica of a young Robert Redford," transsexual surgery to permit "restoration of the relationship between the inner and outer selves" and aesthetic surgery as a fountain of youth. His fast-paced narrative blends cultural criticism with discussion of medical techniques and ethics in a thoughtful study that should appeal to both a lay and professional readership. Photos not seen by PW. (May)

Library Journal

Gilman, a distinguished professor of human biology at the University of Chicago, has drawn on a rich variety of sourcessurgical texts as well as literature, art, and filmto trace the history and the cultural meaning of aesthetic surgery. His story begins with the Renaissance, when the focus on the human ability to transform the self and the world created the distinction between reconstructive and aesthetic surgery. In addition to undoing the ravages of disease, Gilman identifies other motives for aesthetic surgery: matching cultural ideals of beauty, repairing the impact of war-related injuries, and appearing youthful or erotic. Most disturbing are Gilmans wide-ranging examples of how aesthetic surgery has been used to correct signs of racial difference. Gilman brings his story to the present, discussing liposuction, breast enlargement and reduction, and transsexual surgery. He also gives examples from non-Western regions, reflecting the globalization of European American standards of beauty. A fascinating and provocative book that should appeal to scholars and informed general readers alike. Highly recommended.Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

Hammond

According to Mr. Gilman, the ones who are 'happy' after their operations are those who see themselves as able to pass from the undesirable group to which they belonged before the surgery into the group about which they have been fantasizing. In other words the pursuit of happiness through plastic surgery presupposes that there are desirable and undesirable categories. In-groups and out-groups. Hairy, bald. Fat, thin. Large-breasted, small-breasted. Large-nose, small-nose. Male, female. White, nonwhite. Never mind that our perceptions of these categories are constantly in flux.
— The New York Observer

The Economist

A Darwinian view of beauty is [held] by Sander Gilman, who treats plastic surgery as part of the long story of man's desire to "pass" as a member of the dominant group....The "face you deserve" need not be the face you grow into, but the face you can afford.

Kirkus Reviews

From rebuilding syphilis-ravaged noses in the 1600s to the current rage for breast sculpting, this is an enlightening consideration of how aesthetic surgery arises from and is shaped by cultural concerns of the age. University of Chicago professor Gilman (The Jew's Body, not reviewed; Smart Jews: The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence, 1996) clearly differentiates aesthetic from other types of plastic surgery: reconstructive, for instance, restores function, while "the name aesthetic surgery seems to be a label for those procedures which society at any given time sees as unnecessary, as non-medical, as a sign of vanity". He identifies the roots of such procedures in the syphilis epidemic of the 15th century. The disease caused the nose to collapse in on the face, so the first nose re-sculptings were devised to repair the obvious marker and stigma of having syphilis. Gilman goes on to look at "The Racial Nose" (Jewish, Irish, Asian, and black): there was a notion of 18th and early 19th century anthropology that Jewish and black noses indicated a "primitive" character. Similarly, he traces changes in the significance ofo the breast; at the turn of this century, large breasts were considered "primitive," small breasts were considered "modern"; only after WWII, he notes, did breast augmentation surgery overtake breast reductions. Gilman also considers how the ideal profile has changed with the ages, and how the treatment of war injuries has influenced aesthetic surgery. Gilman is not trying for a comprehensive survey of the field—rather, he follows certain threads through history with the goal—fully accomplished—of awakening readers'interest. A scholarly, if quirky, look that serves as a history of our notions about the body and the significance of its parts.

From The Critics

Reviewer: David Johnson(University of California Irvine)
Description: In this book the author chronologically and thematically traces the history of aesthetic surgery from the Renaissance to the new millennium.
Purpose: Aesthetic surgery is used as a lens through which to look at the contested and transgressive meanings associated with surgically induced bodily transformations. Central to the author's argument is the belief that the body can be (and is) read culturally. For the author, the body represents a site that continually acts on and is acted upon by culture; hence, the physical markers of a healthy body are in constant states of transformation. His objective is to locate the underlying racial and ethical subtexts that have shaped aesthetic surgery, and he succeeds with remarkable clarity and nuance.
Audience: This is an important book to read for students who are interested in practicing aesthetic surgery. Practicing surgeons also will find the author's insights into the elective nature of aesthetic surgery as well as his sensitivity to the unique relationship between aesthetic surgeon and patient/client quite revealing. By choosing to have aesthetic surgery, for example, one both announces his or her autonomy while simultaneously abdicating it to the surgeon. Although medical professionals will certainly find the study useful, the author also wants to reach an audience of historians who are interested in the intersection between medicine, modernity, and world history. By showing the possibility of making comparisons between European and Indian medicine, he cogently argues that medicine can be a useful category of analysis in world history.
Features: The author's analysis of the ability of aesthetic surgery to allow one to "pass" — to become (in)visible, seen but not seen — is perhaps the most compelling aspect of the book. This desire can represent a challenge to authority in that aesthetic surgery allows one to cross seemingly impassable boundaries such as race and gender. Yet the author argues that the desire to change one's body represents the realization of an Enlightenment promise, made possible by modern medicine, that humans have the autonomous right to remake themselves in ways that they find fulfilling.
Assessment: Most impressive is the fact that, while the underlying methodology that holds the study together is incredibly sophisticated, the author maintains a lively prose that is elegant, subtle, and very readable.

4 Stars! from Doody