Stand Up Straight!

A History of Posture

By: Sander L. Gilman

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Hardcover | 15 May 2018

At a Glance

Hardcover
424 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.1 x 16.8 x 3

Hardcover

$102.75

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Our bodies are not fixed; they change over time. They vary with alterations in diet, exercise, and illness, and shift as we age. Our attitudes to bodies, and especially to posture — how people hold themselves, how they move — are also fluid. Our stance and gait are interpreted as healthy or ill, able or disabled, elegant or slovenly, beautiful or ugly.

In Stand Up Straight!: A History of Posture, Sander L. Gilman probes these shifting concepts of posture to show how society views who we are and what we are able to do by how our bodies appear.

From Neanderthal man to modern humans, Gilman shows how we have used our understanding of posture to define who we are — and who we are not. The book traverses theology and anthropology, medicine and politics, and ranges from discarded ideas of race to the most modern ideas of disability, and from theories of dance to concepts of national identity.

Interweaving the history of posture with our developing knowledge of anatomy and cultural history, and fully illustrated with an array of striking images, Stand Up Straight! is the first comprehensive history of the upright body at rest and in movement.

Industry Reviews

"Ambitious. . . . Gilman's multidisciplinary approach draws on theology, philosophy, the military, medicine, and art. . . . He deftly threads the striking image of the plumb line throughout, using this trope to turn anecdote into data. . . . Stand Up Straight!'s illustrations are wonderful. . . . Gilman's authoritative voice marshals a crowd of examples into a cogent, illuminating analysis. . . . What he demonstrates so successfully is that any history of posture is always a history of perception. The title's bold imperative is a command barked at those whose posture supposedly imperils the nation, causes moral degeneration, or decreases productivity. He has produced a valuable book."-- "Times Higher Education"
"There is a grandeur to certain works of scholarship, a singularity of vision by which genius is defined. In this respect, Gilman's Stand Up Straight! can be aligned with Simon Schama's rapturous Landscape and Memory--another masterpiece of romantic historical philosophy--in terms of its cultural significance. . . . Stand Up Straight! is more than a joy to read. It is a privilege to wander the labyrinths of Gilman's gorgeously eccentric and intricate mind."-- "Australian"

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