The Anatomy of Disgust (Paperback)

by William Ian Miller (Author)
Key Phrases: downward contempt, moral menials, upward contempt, Middle Ages, Wigan Pier, Mary Douglas (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The title of William Ian Miller's book is a play on Robert Burton's 17th-century classic The Anatomy of Melancholy, an examination of human emotion. In his modern Anatomy, Miller narrows the focus to the function of disgust in human life. Disgust, Miller posits, is a kind of protection; just as fear causes us to flee danger or loyalty prompts us to support one another, disgust draws boundaries and insulates the individual from outside incursions--anything from the unhygienic hair in our soup to the frightening explosion of homelessness in our cities. Among his theories is one that democracy depends on the even distribution of disgust across class lines.

Mr. Miller is not afraid to explore the darker side of disgust as well--the fact that we may feel it in conjunction with contempt toward people, objects, or concepts that do not warrant it. Nevertheless, disgust serves an important role in humanity's complex emotional and social makeup, and The Anatomy of Disgust is novel in its approach to uncovering just what that role might be. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Miller (law, Univ. of Michigan) is certainly an expert on the unsavory. He brilliantly marshals sources that span a millennium of Western history, drawing critically on the works of such diverse thinkers as Hume, Hazlitt, and Freud. One of his main and persuasive conclusions is that disgust fills a social function by identifying and sanctioning class behaviors and attitudes. In making this case, however, he reveals his own apparent insecurity about class as conditioned by his acknowledged privileged perspective. Readers may also need to work through his notion that true love?and sexual pleasure?depend on overcoming disgust. Casual readers need not apply; although Miller writes well, his tone is relentlessly professorial. Given his universal theme, that's a mild disappointment. A category-defying book most appealing to psychologists, anthropologists, and philoophers, this is essential only for liberal arts collections.?Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674031555
• ISBN-13: 978-0674031555
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #393,534 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful, deadpan survey of the darkest emotion, December 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anatomy of Disgust (Hardcover)

An absolute winner. Miller has unflinchingly analysed the disgusting and found a complex universe of overlapping emotions and instincts. Almost every sentence is worth reading out at dinner parties. The index alone is worth the price. Buy the book.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All about the difference between YUCK and YUM, May 23, 2001

By	Sagan Lazar "Sagan Lazar" (Mango Island) - See all my reviews

One more "I loved it!" review? Yes, and here's goes. Mr. Miller does a marvelous job, writing in laid back but eminently readable prose that is also judiciously scholarly, describing, explaining, or just tossing up speculations about a culturally modified body of reaction that provokes the "Ee~oo,gross!". The subject has been handled before, obviously, judging by all the references he makes to the various studies, some recondite, some classic, including Mary Douglas' and Freud's. The book reads like an intimate seminar, with the author citing immediate examples from his own life, and casually but appropriately pointing out things done by his own children. Miller makes it clear from the get go that his study is necessarily restricted to the study of the phenomenon as shaped and defined by the culture and class to which he belongs: WASP with a roundedly informed grasp of his own tradition and values. In that sense, the book makes no claim to be universal, a disclaimer that stands out as an act of virtue in contrast to much of disgustingly pompous academic sweepers out there. Nonetheless, the author does manage to bowl pretty well, getting a strike here and there in terms of observation concerning the qualities that, for all practical purposes, are universally recognized to be those of the disgusting. I use the term 'universal' as it applies today, what with globalization and all. Yes, coprophagy (eating of feces) is indulged in by some for thrills, but I doubt anyone practices drooling saliva into a cup and then drinking it back up. The author suggests that it may not be too much to credit the invisible structure of human social evolution to the distancing of two points, YUCK and YUM. The culturo-environmental determination of the length between those two points may very well contain much of what it takes to delimit a culture's potential for art, science, and language as well. The book contains what everyone already knows (too well!) but never bothered to articulate for him/herself. There is much here to delight the inner pre-pubescent in us all, but it is a serious book, nevertheless. After all, in the grown-up world, it is not the gooey, slimy stuff so much as the ethical defect in the form of gooey, slimy character and corresponding actions that make us think,"EE~oo! Gross!" A nice companion to Sloterdijk's The Critique of Cynical Reason.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars makes subject come to life- regardless, April 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anatomy of Disgust (Hardcover)

Readers will enjoy expanded coverage including Dr. Disgust..Paul Rozin,PhD....in Psychology Today, Jan/Feb '98. ..almost too much to stomach