What does it mean to be a man? To be manly? How has this changed throughout history? This text examines the manly stereotype, which stresses courage and athletic comportment, which from the 18th century onwards became representative of normative modern society.

Introduction: Civilization and its Malcontents PART I: MAKING AND UNMAKING THE GENTLEMAN Four Faces of Civilization, c.1530-1750 Balancing Acts: The Paradox of the Gentleman PART II: MALE BODIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES The Armor of Health and the Diseases of Civilization A Diet of Pleasures? The Incorporation of Manhood Building Bodies: Violence, Pain and the Nation PART III: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND BEYOND Modern Primitives: Manhood and Metamorphosis around 1900 Men of Steel: Technologies of the Male Body The Last Men? Consuming Manhood since 1945 Conclusion: The Return of the Repressed

CHRISTOPHER E. FORTH is the Howard Professor of Humanities& Western Civilization at the University of Kansas. His books include Zarathustra in Paris: The Nietzsche Vogue in France, 1891-1918, The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood, and (co-edited with Bertrand Taithe) French Masculinities: History, Politics and Culture.