This collection offers a uniquely comprehensive guide to the sociology of the body. With a strong historical scope and conceptual framework, it provides an indispensible reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and a robust source for scholars working in the area. The central focus is on understanding sociology through the body; what is often described as re-reading sociology in a 'more corporeal light'. This is an interdisciplinary process, drawing on history, feminism, cultural history, art history, anthropology, social psychology, philosophy, medical sociology and media and communications, as well as sociology. While this has been primarily a Western practice, The Body seeks to broaden the perspective to include references that draw on alternative cultural assumptions, beliefs and practices (including Japan, and South America.)

First Published in 1975 Blackmail: Publicity and Secrecy in Everyday Life examines why blackmail is often taken more seriously than murder and why it is widely considered as a serious social threat. Both fictional and real-life situations are used to explore the kinds of social situation in which various individuals become vulnerable to blackmail. In isolating the key ingredients of reputational blackmail in Britain over the last hundred years, this book is not preoccupied with threats to accuse someone of a major criminal offence such as murder or armed robbery, but rather with those cases where the penalties of discovery are less clear-cut and where public reaction may be much more ambivalent. Mike Hepworth focuses attention on the way blackmail is stigmatized in criminological and other literature and the possible validity of the stereotype in the light of alternative interpretations. This book is an interesting read for scholars and researchers of criminology and sociology.

"I must say at the start that this is a most important and interesting collection which does much to advance the sociology of the body. I congratulate the editors for a fine achievement, and the editors of TCS for pioneering this new, and now much less secret, theorizing of the body and of the embodied self." --Contemporary Sociology "Both engrossing and challenging, the papers present to the reader an opportunity to examine in depth the significance of the human physique. . . . A thought provoking book." --Journal of Applied Rehabilitation Counseling For centuries the human body has been a long-established issue in anthropology. However, human embodiment is increasingly becoming the primary focus in sociology and cultural studies as a means to understanding the complex interrelations between nature, culture, and society. At a theoretical level, this challenging volume explores the origins of a social theory of the body in sources ranging from the work of Nietzsche to contemporary feminist theory. Through specific case studies, the contributors demonstrate the importance of a theoretical understanding of the body to social and cultural analyses of contemporary societies. These range from the expression of emotions, romantic love, dietary practices, consumer behavior, physical fitness, beauty, and media images of women and sexuality. The Body will interest scholars and researchers, as well as students of social theory, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and philosophy.