Sex in History

Fülszöveg

REAY TANNAHILL
"A consistently entertaining frank
exploration of human sexuality. A
milestone in the literature on sex-
uality." — Publishers Weekly
Strip human history down to essentials, and it
becomes clear that there ?re only two — food and
sex. Without these, the real determinants, there
would be no history at all, and because of this they
have not only supported but shaped society's vast
underpinning of religion and law, war and revolu-
tion, imperial adventure, secular morality, and
political enterprise.
Reay Tannahill's now classic Food in History
(1973) is a bestselling pioneer work that demon-
strated that if one looked at history from the
perspective of what people ate and how they grew
it, human history seemed quite different from
what one was brought up to believe. It was
welcomed by reviewers and readers as "fascina-
ting," "unique," "astounding," "perspective-
changing." The same can be said of Sex in History.
Previous studies of the subject... Tovább

Fülszöveg

REAY TANNAHILL
"A consistently entertaining frank
exploration of human sexuality. A
milestone in the literature on sex-
uality." — Publishers Weekly
Strip human history down to essentials, and it
becomes clear that there ?re only two — food and
sex. Without these, the real determinants, there
would be no history at all, and because of this they
have not only supported but shaped society's vast
underpinning of religion and law, war and revolu-
tion, imperial adventure, secular morality, and
political enterprise.
Reay Tannahill's now classic Food in History
(1973) is a bestselling pioneer work that demon-
strated that if one looked at history from the
perspective of what people ate and how they grew
it, human history seemed quite different from
what one was brought up to believe. It was
welcomed by reviewers and readers as "fascina-
ting," "unique," "astounding," "perspective-
changing." The same can be said of Sex in History.
Previous studies of the subject have always
been hampered by laws prepared to tolerate an
anthropological and psychological theory — even
strings of anecdotes, provided they qualified as
"literature" — but not a straight record of histori-
cal fact. Even the authors themselves have been
limited by the fact that until recently, European
erotica has been kept in locked rooms, Chinese
texts have remained untranslated, and Tantric art
has been seen only in private collections. But the
freer atmosphere of the last decade has changed
much of that.,
Sex in History draws on the findings of an-
thropology, archaeology, bio-chemistry, genetics,
physiology, and psychoanalysis, as well as art,
architecture, literature, and theology, in order to
place the human sex drive and its social and moral
(Continued on back flap)
(Continued from front flap)
consequences in their widest historical perspec-
tive. It takes in the whole panorama of sexual
attitudes, customs, and practices in all the world's
major civilizations, from prehistoric times until
the present day.
While it may not be of any great practical use
to the modern reader to know how to discipline a
harem, or how different methods of castration
affect a eunuch's sexual capacity, or even how
Sodom, a gloomy place, gained its reputation for
gaiety, there remains much in the sexual past that
still affects not only the sexual but the moral pres-
ent. When humanity's early ancestors changed
from four legs to two, they could hardly have
foreseen that the new face-to-face mating posture
they adopted as a matter of expediency should
have brought not only orgasm but rape in its train.
And when man discovered that his semen was
essential to procreation, woman could scarcely
have anticipated that she would be subjected to
ten thousand years of subordination as a result.
Sex in History should interest both general
readers and belligerents in the assorted con-
temporary wars between the permissive and the
anti-permissive, between women and men, be-
tween homosexuals and heterosexuals — espe-
cially those who recognize the wisdom of Mark
Twain's advice to: "Get your facts first and then
you can distort them as you please." In Reay
Tannahiilb new book, they should find at least
another ten-years' worth of ammunition. Vissza