The Routledge History of Sex and the Body provides an overview of the main themes surrounding the history of sexuality from 1500 to the present day. The history of sex and the body is an expanding field in which vibrant debate on, for instance, the history of homosexuality, is developing. This book examines the current scholarship and looks towards future directions for the field. Including contributors renowned in their field of expertise, this ground-breaking collection is essential reading for all those interested in the history of sexuality and the body.

Sarah Toulalan is a senior lecture of the history of the body at the University of Exeter, UK. Her previous publications include, Bodies, sex and desire from the Renaissance to the Present co-edited with Kate Fisher (2011) and Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth-Century England (2007).

Kate Fisher is a professor of the history of sexuality at the University of Exeter, UK. Her previous publications include, Bodies, sex and desire from the Renaissance to the Present co-edited with Sarah Toulalan (2011), Sex before the Sexual Revolution. Intimate Life in England 1918-1963 co-authored with Simon Szreter (2010) and Birth control, sex and marriage in Britain 1918-60 (2006).

Introduction. 1. Studying the Body and Sexuality. 2. Sexual Science: Medical Understandings of the Body 3. Examining the Body: Science, Technology and Explorations of the Body 4. Body and Mind: Sexuality and Identity 5. Clothing and Nakedness 6. Pornography and Erotica 7. Knowledge and Experience 8. Life Cycles 'Age to Great, or to Little, Doeth let Conception': 9. Courtship and Marriage 10. Reproduction 11. Prostitution 12. Sexual Violence and Rape 13. Sexual Disease 14. Bodies, Sex and Race 15. Afterword. Bibliographies. Index.