We’ve all been there: You finish a book that stole a piece of your soul. Even after consuming sequels, prequels, television and film adaptations, books on similar topics, and erotic or otherwise questionable fan fiction, you still haven’t sated your thirst to know and read more. Have you considered turning to something a little more true-to-life? For […]
A “wide-ranging and thoughtful” (Wall Street Journal) exploration of the varied obsessions that the “civilized West” has had with decapitated heads and skulls. The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head’s preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
A “wide-ranging and thoughtful” (Wall Street Journal) exploration of the varied obsessions that the “civilized West” has had with decapitated heads and skulls. The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet there is a dark side to the head’s preeminence, one that has, in the course of human history, manifested itself in everything from decapitation to headhunting. So explains anthropologist Frances Larson in this fascinating history of decapitated human heads. From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, Larson explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
336Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
336Paperback(Reprint)
$15.95
15.95
In Stock
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781631490996 |
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Publisher: | Liveright Publishing Corporation |
Publication date: | 11/02/2015 |
Edition description: | Reprint |
Pages: | 336 |
Sales rank: | 475,405 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d) |
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