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.)