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Overview
After World War II, the United States underwent a massive cultural transformation that was vividly realized in the development and widespread use of new medical technologies. Plastic surgery, wonder drugs, artificial organs, and prosthetics inspired Americans to believe in a new age of modern medical miracles. The nationalistic pride that flourished in postwar society, meanwhile, encouraged many Americans to put tremendous faith in the power of medicine to rehabilitate and otherwise transform the lives and bodies of the disabled and those considered abnormal. Replaceable You revisits this heady era in American history to consider how these medical technologies and procedures were used to advance the politics of conformity during the 1950s.
Synopsis
After World War II, the United States underwent a massive cultural transformation that was vividly realized in the development and widespread use of new medical technologies. Plastic surgery, wonder drugs, artificial organs, and prosthetics inspired Americans to believe in a new age of modern medical miracles. The nationalistic pride that flourished in postwar society, meanwhile, encouraged many Americans to put tremendous faith in the power of medicine to rehabilitate and otherwise transform the lives and bodies of the disabled and those considered abnormal. Replaceable You revisits this heady era in American history to consider how these medical technologies and procedures were used to advance the politics of conformity during the 1950s.
Technology and Culture
"Serlin shows the power of cultural studies at its best, informed by a careful understanding both of the technology itself and of its reception."
— Edward Tenner
Editorials
CHOICE
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2006
"An insightful, sociocultural analysis of the impact medical advances had on the American psyche and body during the 1950s. . . . The book is balanced to provide the rigorous research a historian would need and to be accessible to any reader with a general interest in science and society.
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Serlin's remarkable book illuminates the culture and politics of postwar America by investigating intersections of race, class, gender, medicine, and technology. . . . Serlin provides a thick descriptive context, effectively mobilizing an impressive array of primary sources . . . and secondary literatures on a wide range of topics, from important studies of Cold War culture, to the history of prothesis technology and scientific knowledge on hormones, and the publishing history of Ebony.— Jill Fields
American Historical Review
The essays largely succed in suggesting that postwar Americans utilized medical options for reengineering the body in ways that validated the dominant social order. This important insight is only the most ubiquitous of the many to take away from this valuable consideration of American culture.— M. L. Tina Stevens
Technology and Culture
Serlin shows the power of cultural studies at its best, informed by a careful understanding both of the technology itself and of its reception.— Edward Tenner