Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America

Name: Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America
Price: 3.53 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780809055470

ISBN-10: 0809055473

ISBN-13: 9780809055470

Edition: N/A

Authors: John F. Kasson

List price: $21.00

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Description:

An important new work from one of our premier cultural historians. Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man considers the surprisingly complex evolution in representations of the white male body in late-nineteenth-century America, during years of rapid social transformation. John F. Kasson argues that three exemplars of physical prowess -- Eugen Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder; Edgar Rice Burroughs's fictional hero Tarzan; and the great escape artist Harry Houdini -- represented both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity. They each extolled self-development, self-fulfillment, and escape from the confines of civilization while at the same time reasserting…

Book details

List price: $21.00
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Publication date: 7/2/2002
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 272
Size: 5.25" wide x 8.25" long x 0.75" tall
Weight: 0.748
Language: English

John F. Kasson, who teaches history & American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of "Amusing the Million" (H&W, 1978), "Rudeness & Civility" (H&W, 1990), & "Civilizing the Machine" (H&W, 1999).