Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction (Suny Series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations) [Paperback]

Alan M. Klein (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press; 2nd edition (July 31, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791415600
• ISBN-13: 978-0791415603
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,002,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Predetermined interpretation, May 8, 2006

By 

Brian Malley (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction (Suny Series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations) (Paperback)

As a lifter (but not a bodybuilder), and trained as an anthropologist, I expected this to be a fun and illuminating book, especially in light of some of the other reviews. I think this is a decent book--Klein writes well and captures gym flavor decently--but not a good one. It seems to me that Klein had already decided, prior to his empirical work, that bodybuilding was an outgrowth of or response to a sense of inadequacy. As far as I can tell, he never puts his interpretation to any kind of test: rather, he merely picks out those facts that support his interpretation and glosses them with a great deal of unsupported speculation. There is actually counterevidence to some of his claims in the book, but he never deals with it as such. All in all, I think it is a shame to spend seven years doing fieldwork only to rehearse a fairly standard bias against bodybuilders. If you read this book, balance it with another Roland S. Persson's short book Big Bad & Stupid or Big Good & Smart, which is a contrarily biased study. Persson's book is hard to find, but exposes some of the kinds of bias Klein adopts.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable format, intriguing study., September 24, 2002

By 

Liz "L." (PA, United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction (Suny Series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations) (Paperback)

Insightful examination of an extreme manifestation of societal tendency, and how this reflects on gender construction in our society as a whole.
I purchased this book for use as one of the (many!) references for my thesis (on gender role traits and food selection.)
While probably not for a lay audience, this book is written in a very easy-to-read style for a study. Although I have to do hours and hours of reading every single day, I still found that this book held my interest.

7 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Condescending, July 28, 2006

By 

Mike Finn (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction (Suny Series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations) (Paperback)

What a condescending, supercilious and smarmy piece of crap. Even the title is a slap at bodybuilders, many of whom work very hard to perfect their physiques. Would Klein have written similarly about B.K.S. Iyengar, the world's great yoga teacher, who practices yoga
6 hours a day? No, because he is a revered figure. But bodybuilders are an easy target, so safe to bash. The fact is that bodybuilders are smart, disciplined and have a highly developed skill.