| 1 | 1 | | In a society obsessed with the body beautiful, high-fibre diets, and aerobics, a new |
| 2 | | approach to history, taking in much of the jargon and some of the bunk of modern |
| 3 | | self-obsession, is raising hackles among many historians. |
| 2 | 4 | | Body historians believe that history has dwelt too exclusively on the workings of |
| 5 | | the mind, great men, wars, and other datable events. Body language, they argue, must |
| 6 | | now be translated over the centuries. The link between past and present is an |
| 7 | | understanding of how people 'conceive and treat their bodies and how their bodies were |
| 8 | | treated ... in earlier times', writes Roy Porter, a body historian. |
| 3 | 9 | | Perceptions of the body are seen as a register of social change and as the cause and |
| 10 | | effect of political and cultural development. Inevitably, says the body historian, |
| 11 | | perceptions of the body are projected on to the body politic. Similarly, political |
| 12 | | developments have a sometimes-profound effect on the way bodies are treated. |
| 4 | 13 | | Foucault, feminism, Desmond Morris and Aids have encouraged a more corporeal |
| 14 | | approach to historical research and as are suit bodies are making a late run in a field |
| 15 | | where brains have been the focus. |
| 5 | 16 | | At one end body history may explore the diet of Henry VIII; at the other, the |
| 17 | | relationship between the mechanical, devalued perception of the body in Industrial |
| 18 | | Britain and the rise of factory populations. Similarly, the prevalence of suicide among |
| 19 | | Victorian women is seen as a reflection of moralism concerning duty and responsibility. |
| 6 | 20 | | The theory traces perceptions of the body as a means of answering wider questions. |
| 21 | | A recent example argues that in l8th century France, a culturally-imposed disdain for |
| 22 | | bodily frailty encouraged men to kill heroically and die nobly (thus helping to create a |
| 23 | | revolution) but left the population with a violent philosophy at odds with communal life. |
| 7 | 24 | | Muesli history, as critics call it, has created the impression that people in the past |
| 25 | | were as concerned about their bodies as these new-age historians. But body history may |
| 26 | | only last as long as the trendy physical introspection it reflects. |
| | | |
| | | Ben Mcintyre, September 24, 1989 |
