The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History [Paperback]

Lithe Sebesta (Author), Maura Spiegel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

Introducing the chunky, obsessive book of Breasts.

Using over 600 illustrations and photographs, The Breast Book is about changing social mores and attitudes, from classical Greek statuary to the Victorian corset to Twiggy to Pamela Lee. The Breast Book is about envy and etiquette, differences-why 90 percent of French women do not breastfeed, for example-and adornment, including make-up, tattooing, nipple rings, and more. Breasts is about politics, art, religion, kitsch, and burning the bra. About perceptions-90 percent of men prefer a size C over a D. About high art-whether the humanist breast in Renaissance painting or its feminist send-up by photographer Cindy Sherman-and pop art, from Vargas girls to World War II bomber mascots to Madonna. The Breast Book is about getting them right-falsies, bust improvers, gadgets, pumps, and creams-and showing them off, like Jayne Mansfield's, immortalized in cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater.

A work of pop culture in itself, The Breast Book includes recurring visual elements like Time Lines and Great Moments of the Breast, plus Titbits-fascinating trivia running throughout.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lithe Sebesta is a journalist who has written for Vogue, Details, the New York Post, and the New York Times.

Maura Spiegel is a professor of English at Columbia University who specializes in gender studies. She is the author of The Grim Reader and has written for the New York Times.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761121129
• ISBN-13: 978-0761121121
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #828,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing gift book, November 17, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Paperback)

This book does for breasts what "The Vagina Monologues" did for that other ubiquitous portion of the female anatomy. But breasts are more "out there," visually and socially, and this extremely fun book (approximately the size of a breast) uses hundreds of photographs to celebrate them and document societies' ever-changing attitudes, codes, fashions and artistic representation (one chapter is devoted solely to their representation by woman artists). There's a thoughtful chapter about adolescence; funny bits about Hollywood (in a candid shot, Sophia Loren in all her glory glances disapprovingly at Jayne Mansfield's down-to-the-nipple decolletage); interesting facts about the breast's dual role as sexual organ and milk producer -- hence the duality of the sacred and the profane. Since the book fits so comfortably in the hand, I find myself taking it with me from room to room, so I bought myself another on and now I have a pair.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mostly sound bytes but great pictures, January 1, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Paperback)

I bought this book after seeing "Cleavage" on A&E a few weeks ago since one of the authors was featured on the show. (Side note: I was quite frankly amazed not to see Marilyn Yalom on this show, but maybe I missed her.) This is a small, cute and flirty book that contains a sort of sound-byte history of the female breast. The pictures are great although far too many are not captioned - if you want to know what you're looking at, you'll need to comb through the credits at the back of the book. A few sections of the text are more or less meaningless (i.e., The Veiled Erotic); others do have lots of genuine facts and insights. In other words, if you want to look at pictures of bosoms without getting too wrapped up in history, politics or other serious issues, this is the book for you. That said, I do think that the book does a good job of looking (very, very briefly) at the breast in its many incarnations: sex object, food, cultural icon, etc. It's a good starting point if you have a serious interest in the history of the breast. I would probably rate this book higher if 1) the book was bigger, 2) and went into more detail. To my mind, if this book is a publishing gimmick (which I believe to be the case), then why not spring for a bit more substance? With all the pictures, I am certain people would be willing to plunk down the cash for it.

I read that the authors put two years of research into this book, and I am pretty perplexed by that. The book came out in 2002, yet a lot of the information could have been directly lifted from Marilyn Yalom's A History of the Breast, which was published in 1995, and which is excellent and far superior (I would recommend it to anyone). Perhaps those two years were spent compiling the very nice collection of photos.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE YOUR BREASTS!, January 3, 2003

By 

"pamelabirthjunkie" (Salem, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Breast Book: An Intimate and Curious History (Paperback)

In our culture of breast implants, sexual focus on breasts, negative views of breastfeeding, the rise of breast cancer, and the sexual and esteem implications that come from it all, this book is sure to TITillate, humor and EMPOWER women!

This book covers the historical views of breasts, as well as the functioning breast (yes, they're actually made to lactate!), the political breast and the sexual breast. I love that it is small, but packed with illustrations and photographs that I had never seen before!

A great little gift for yourself - start appreciating your breasts and they won't let you down!