Masculinity Review

Christopher Forth’s book on the concept of masculinity posited in western civilizations provides a transnational and fact-oriented historical narrative of the embattled concept of masculinity since the 1500’s. In his book, Forth aims to connect research on masculinity with research on the civilizing process and the body. For this purpose, he chose to argue that the perceived notion of masculinity as a contemporary phenomenon in “crisis” is not a new problem. The constant rhetoric has done a great deal to heighten the tension creating a sense of urgency however he asserts that while modern civilization promotes the interest of men it often simultaneously deconstructs the corporeal foundations of male privilege, so that modernity and masculinity are in constant fluid states of instability. Forth sets out to explain his argument by chronologically controlling the unstable historical details of masculinity from the period between 1500 and 1750 to the present.

Forth approaches the topic from various themes. He connects many notions about masculinity to practices that protect men from the growing extravagances of civilization, such as, class, diet, health, hygiene, exercise and violence. His ability to focus on these connections gives credence to the notion that lifestyle changes nurtured through the civilizing process relate to the physical expression of male virility.

This carefully structured book is divided into three parts; Forth explores the rules and regulations prescribed for the self-controlled yet anxious gentlemen during the sixteenth century and through the nineteenth century, to the commercialize primitives in the late twentieth century. Part one deals with the challenges that a growing civilization put upon the endange...

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...ent a strong healthy body. Struggles with identity issues often forced men to doubt as specific models of the male body were drawn to exemplify the meaning of what was male and masculine as the civilizing process often constructed and deconstructed national and individual identities, specifically. Thus, if the body had to be defended from outside threats, the political body must be protected to fend off weak, soft foreign cultures. Therefore, if one considers both circumstances military like procedures that increase durability and stamina and other processes of strength conditioning could redefine the body and create specific and lasting differences between male and female, national and foreign. Forth convinces the reader that, real men were civilized but in addition needed protection and guidance from becoming to effeminate afforded by the civilizing process.