Product Description

"Haiken has written a humane, balanced history of cosmetic surgery, drawing with sensitivity and deftness on impressive archival sources, including surgeons' folders on prospective patients... Her book is a first-class exercise in medical history, raising intriguing questions about normalization, ideological manipulation, gender, ethnicity, and the profit motive in medicine." -- Richard Davenport-Hines, Nature

"What makes Venus Envy such an enthralling read is that alongside a host of macabre and 'no -- really!' stories... there is a hugely intelligent and perceptive analysis of American culture and history going on." -- London Times

Face lifts, nose jobs, breast implants, liposuction, collagen injections -- the body at the end of the twentieth century has become endlessly mutable, and surgical alteration has become an accepted part of American culture. In Venus Envy, Elizabeth Haiken traces the quest for physical perfection through surgery from the turn of the century to the present. Drawing on a wide array of sources -- personal accounts, medical records, popular magazines, medical journals, and beauty guides -- Haiken reveals how our culture came to see cosmetic surgery as a panacea for both individual and social problems.

"An informative, often engaging account of the history of cosmetic surgery in the United States." -- Parade Magazine

"Original, well-researched, and a pleasure to read. It constitutes an astute analysis of the modern commodification of the body and the role of the medical profession in such developments." -- Roy Porter, Times Higher Education Supplement

"This is an important book, raising provocative questions about the ubiquity of cosmetic surgery in our culture... I'll certainly draw on its insights when counseling patients considering cosmetic surgery." -- Janet E. Shepherd, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association

"An entertaining history and serious analysis of the tensions among professional medicine, entrepreneurial practitioners, and the mutable ideal of beauty that reminds us how unchanging is the American search for self-improvement... If Venus Envy is a history of cosmetic surgery, it is equally a political history of beauty." -- Sharon Lieberman, Women's Review of Books

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #616237 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review

"Part history, part cultural/economic analysis, it explains better than anything else I've read what made American society so vulnerable to the seduction of the knife and the tyranny of visual conformity. As the idea of the perfect, ageless body becomes ever more dominant in our culture, it's important that we -- especially women -- understand how we've got ourselves into this mess. Venus Envy offers readable, perceptive answers." -- Sarah Dunant, The Times of London

"Original, well-researched, and a pleasure to read. It constitutes an astute analysis of the modern commodification of the body and the role of the medical profession in such developments." -- Roy Porter, Times Higher Education Supplement

"An informative, often engaging account of the history of cosmetic surgery in the United States." -- Parade Magazine

""[A] very meaty history of plastic surgery. The relevant race and gender issues are thoroughly worked over (one chapter title: 'The Michael Jackson Factor'), and there are enough horror stories about leached silicone and Homely Girl contests to make one permanently swear off the scalpel." -- Entertainment Weekly

""This book charts how millions have spent billions to enlarge or shrink body parts. Author Elizabeth Haiken has pitched a big tent. Plastic surgery embraces self-enhancement, prejudice, greed, submission and opportunity. This is about life in a democracy, where (for a price) any boy can be president and any girl can be Miss America." -- Kate Callen, San-Diego Union-Tribune

About the Author

Elizabeth Haiken is an assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia.

Customer Reviews

Very interesting book
I read this book while doing undergraduate research on plastic surgery in the 1920's. As far as I can tell, this is the only scholarly history of plastic surgery done to date. The book was fascinating and well-written, and Dr. Haiken did an incredible job of showing the social climate that lent to the proliferation of plastic surgery in American society.