Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Body

by Michael Sims (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $4.51

  In this title Michael Sims simultaneously explores the natural history of the body and the cultural history that records our response to it. Divided into sections corresponding with various body parts, this almanac explores every aspect of thehuman form - from the largest organ (the skin) to the evolutionary reasoning behind sexually attractive body parts - witness the cult of aprodite kalipygos ( the goddess with the beautiful buttocks ).

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.29

  Adam's Navel is a unique scientific, cultural and literary tour of the human body. Starting with the head and ending with the feet, Sims gives us an entertaining and illuminating account of the outside of the human body and our responses to it. From the ancient prejudice against left-handedness, to the work of the nineteenth-century criminologist who claimed he could identify the physical characteristics common to criminals, and what we would do without a big toe, Adam's Navel is full of memorable insights, amusing anecdotes and revelations on every page.