THE CULT OF HEALTH AND BEAUTY IN GERMANY

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-31976-6
Writer: Michael Hau
Τitle: The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany
Subtitle: A Social History, 1890-1930
Language: English
Edition: First Edition
Place of Publication: Chicago and London
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Year of Publication: 2003
Format: 153x229mm
Pages: x+286 printed on alkaline paper
Illustrations: 48 black and white pictures
Binding: Paperback in laminated duotone covers
Weight: 402gr.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

From the 1890s to the 1930s, a growing number of Germans began to scrutinize and discipline their bodies in a utopian search for perfect health and beauty. Some became vegetarians, nudists, or bodybuilders, while others turned to alternative medicine or eugenics. In The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany, Michael Hau demonstrates why so many men and women were drawn to these life reform movements and examines their tremendous impact on German society and medicine.


Hau argues that the obsession with personal health and fitness was often rooted in anxieties over professional and economic success, as well as fears that modern industrialized civilization was causing Germany and its people to degenerate. He also examines how different social groups gave different meanings to the same hygienic practices and aesthetic ideals. What results is a penetrating book at class formation in pre-Nazi Germany that will interest historians of Europe and medicine and scholars of culture and gender.