Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair - Rilegato

Oldstone-moore, Christopher

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 022628400X ISBN 13: 9780226284002

Casa editrice: Univ of Chicago Pr, 2015

Riassunto

Beards—they’re all the rage these days. Take a look around: from hip urbanites to rustic outdoorsmen, well-groomed metrosexuals to post-season hockey players, facial hair is everywhere. The New York Times traces this hairy trend to Big Apple hipsters circa 2005 and reports that today some New Yorkers pay thousands of dollars for facial hair transplants to disguise patchy, juvenile beards. And in 2014, blogger Nicki Daniels excoriated bearded hipsters for turning a symbol of manliness and power into a flimsy fashion statement. The beard, she said, has turned into the padded bra of masculinity.

Of Beards and Men makes the case that today’s bearded renaissance is part of a centuries-long cycle in which facial hairstyles have varied in response to changing ideals of masculinity. Christopher Oldstone-Moore explains that the clean-shaven face has been the default style throughout Western history—see Alexander the Great’s beardless face, for example, as the Greek heroic ideal. But the primacy of razors has been challenged over the years by four great bearded movements, beginning with Hadrian in the second century and stretching to today’s bristled resurgence. The clean-shaven face today, Oldstone-Moore says, has come to signify a virtuous and sociable man, whereas the beard marks someone as self-reliant and unconventional. History, then, has established specific meanings for facial hair, which both inspire and constrain a man’s choices in how he presents himself to the world.

This fascinating and erudite history of facial hair cracks the masculine hair code, shedding light on the choices men make as they shape the hair on their faces. Oldstone-Moore adeptly lays to rest common misperceptions about beards and vividly illustrates the connection between grooming, identity, culture, and masculinity. To a surprising degree, we find, the history of men is written on their faces.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Christopher Oldstone-Moore is a senior lecturer in history at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

Of Beards and Men

The Revealing History of Facial Hair

By Christopher Oldstone-Moore

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2016 Christopher Oldstone-Moore
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-28400-2

Contents

Introduction: Male-Pattern History, 
1 Why Do Men Have Beards?, 
2 In the Beginning, 
3 The Classic Shave, 
4 How Jesus Got His Beard, 
5 The Inner Beard, 
6 The Beard Renaissance, 
7 The Shave of Reason, 
8 Beards of the Romantic Imagination, 
9 Patriarchs of the Industrial Age, 
10 Muscles and Mustaches, 
11 Corporate Men of the Twentieth Century, 
12 Hair on the Left, 
13 Postmodern Men, 
Conclusions, 
Acknowledgments, 
Notes, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

WHY DO MEN HAVE BEARDS?

Civilization is at war with nature. That is true at least with regard to facial hair. In the heat of this centuries-long battle, on which billions of dollars are spent each year, few have paused to consider how the war began in the first place. Why did nature give men — and some women — beards? How did they end up with a band of hair on their cheeks and chins that society requires they scrape off every day? If one hopes to discover the meaning of beards, it makes sense to start with these basic questions. And that will require us to peer into the mists of the evolutionary past.

It is tempting to think that beards are a holdover from our much hairier progenitors, that for whatever reason this trait survived as we developed into the naked ape. Yet bonobos, our closest relative in the animal kingdom, lack hair around their mouths — precisely where the human beard grows. It would seem that, if anything, human beings have added hair to their faces, even as they lost it most other places. Even if our ape ancestors had had hairy faces, a question would remain: Why did women lose this hair while men retained it? As it is, a hairy chin and upper lip are virtually unique to the human male.

The beard is also distinctive as the last of the sexual traits to manifest itself in a man's development, other than baldness. Biologists have determined that both beard growth and baldness are stimulated by androgens, such as testosterone, and that the rate of growth varies according to naturally occurring cycles of hormone secretion. One scientist reported in the journal Nature in 1970 that he had measured an increased rate of beard growth (by weighing the clippings from his shaver) on days before he traveled to visit his distant lover. He surmised that his androgen levels spiked as he anticipated sexual activity, causing his beard to grow faster. Later studies found that androgen production followed a five- or six-day cycle, as well as a daily cycle, with facial hair growth reflecting its variation. A California scientist reported in 1986 that both illness and jet lag affected the rate of his beard growth, apparently by disrupting these hormonal rhythms. More recently, biologists have mapped some of the endocrine pathways that link androgens with hair follicles in the face and scalp. It is clear that male hormones are part of the mechanism of beard growth and hair loss, but this does not explain why these androgens have evolved this function.

The Evolution of Beards

Beginning with Charles Darwin himself, evolutionary theorists have pondered the origins of the beard. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin described a process of sexual selection that operates in tandem with natural selection in shaping the course of human development. Natural selection changes a species by fa

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Univ of Chicago Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 022628400X
• ISBN 13: 9780226284002
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 338
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile