Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud

by Thomas W. Laqueur

Book Overview

This is a book about the making and unmaking of sex over the centuries. It tells the astonishing story of sex in the West from the ancients to the moderns in a precise account of developments in reproductive anatomy and physiology. We cannot fail to recognize the players in Thomas Laqueur's story--the human sexual organs and pleasures, food, blood, semen, egg, sperm--but we will be amazed at the plots into which they have been woven by scientists,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674543556
• ISBN13: 9780674543553
• Release Date: February 1992
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating

This book is absolutely fascinating. I recently wrote a paper on gender anatomy in the 18th and 19th century, and this book was my main resource. Laqueur has a clear and well written style as he describes the different theories on gender and sex throughout the ages and the rammifications of these theories in terms of culture and interpersonal relationships.

Foucault 101

An excellent book laying and discussing the basics of gender creation in western culture. This book borrows heavily from "The History of Sexuality" by Michel Foucault. This book very explictly forms a general hypothesis of gender and doesn't fail to back it up with extreme detail, sometimes "ad nauseum". Overall a good read, though dense.