This is a contemporary and relevant collection of articles which is particularly relevant in today's body‐obsessed culture. There is something for all interests here: diets, blood, buttocks, plastic surgery, cosmetics, and the heart are among some of the areas explored in social, cultural, geographical and moral terms.
The Encyclopedia is in two volumes. The first begins with an explanation about the scope and organization of the material and differentiations between biological, medical and cultural and what kind of information will be found in this work. Pitts‐Taylor talks about the natural body versus the socially constructed body, the way that the body is becoming used as a tool for identity of the self and others and the awareness that it can be reformed or re‐wired as it were, such as body modification or gastric bypass surgery. She also looks at the issue of cultural relativism which attempts to place cultural practices, some of which may be alien and even appalling to readers from other societies, in some sort of geographical or spatial context. Within this first volume there is also a detailed timeline which begins at 24000 BCE with the carving of the Venus of Willendorf and ends in 2008 with the repeal of the ban on wearing the veil in Turkish universities and public institutions. The second volume contains an index and biographical information about the editor and contributors.
I found the organization of the Encyclopedia useful and rather entertaining. Entries are compiled alphabetically by body part and each section contains a variety of articles on different issues. For example, the chapter on Face contains Cultural ideals of facial beauty, History of make‐up wearing, Performance art of the face and Michael Jackson's Face among others. The kind of body parts chosen as headings also vary: organs, body systems, bodily fluids are all given consideration as well as the more obvious bits such as ears, face, limbs and so on. Fat has its own chapter, not surprising given the importance placed upon it in contemporary society.
The reader can see the “map” of the Encyclopedia in the contents list which lists each article under its relevant body part. From this, one can see that most of the chapters begin with or contain a cultural history of the body part in question (hand, lips, nose) which provides a context for the other articles which may look at particular practices, popular media, a celebrity or surgical procedures.
The content of each article ranges from the examination of contemporary media to ancient and early modern practices: the History of Antiaging Treatments looks at attitudes towards elderliness in The Odyssey, standard fairy tales including Snow White and more contemporary morality tales such as The Picture of Dorian Gray. Other topics throughout the Encyclopedia include menstruation, tattoos, an “Ode to the Derrière” (a look at music celebrating the behind from the 1970s to the present day), hair removal, surgical fat reduction, a history of shoes, the hand in marriage, castration, footbinding and the history of the corset. The articles themselves are informative, often humorous and do a good job of exploring the human body and all the variant attitudes, permutations and decorations placed on it. The entries range from half a page to about five pages and the Encyclopedia is illustrated with photographs, although these are used sparingly. Every entry ends with a reading list containing articles, books and web sites.
I enjoyed browsing these volumes enormously; the Encyclopedia is laid out in a way that enables the reader to browse casually, or use it as the base for further research into the cultural and social issues examined. Psychology, sociology, history and humanities collections would find this useful, as indeed would those studying medicine from a cultural perspective.
