Details
Synopsis
THE CENTURY OF SEX explores the ways in which historical tumults of the 1900s affected sex--and vice versa--through the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, two world wars, the Cold War, the '60s, the disco era, and the age of AIDS. It also traces the changes wrought by medical science, social science, and technology, from the vibrator to home video to Viagra.
| Size | | Length: | 548 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 7.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 39.2 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "On one of my first days of research for this book I visited Planned Parenthood offices in New York City to look at documents in the Margaret Sanger Library."
Industry Reviews
"While the book is quite good on the period up to and including World War II, Petersen's account of the second half of the century of sex begins to show some rhetorical stress fractures. The past 50 years--at least in the author's mind--have been the Playboy Era, and his narrative of the 50's through the present is increasingly marred by partisan remarks that range from mildly sycophantic references to his boss....[T]o gratuitous swipes at Playboy's competitors....Far more damaging to this book's claims to seriousness is the way that Petersen's pro-Playboy partisanship comes into conflict with the ostensibly liberated (and liberal) sexual attitudes he espouses elsewhere. His championing of protofeminist figures like Craddock sits awkwardly with his complaints about later women's negative attitudes toward Playboy itself."
Mendelsohn
"It's a lively, casual mosaic of anecdotes, statistics, historical road markers, and preserved-in-amber slices of sex life, with no room left to discuss psychological or historical complexities. But within its basic framework--the liberation of the libido--everything falls into place. And everything is here, from Evelyn Nesbit, the 16-year-old beauty riding naked on a velvet swing in Stanford White's love nest, to Monica giving Lewinskys in the Oval Office; from Anthony Comstock, the self-appointed turn-of-the-and lesbians, sex shops, and Marilyn Chambers, an Ivory Snow model, in the porn classic BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR."
Entertainment Weekly - L.S Klepp (12/31/1999)
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