{"product_id":"bodies-complexioned-human-variation-and-racism-in-early-modern-english-culture-c-1600-1750-paperback","title":"Bodies Complexioned: Human Variation and Racism in Early Modern English Culture, C. 1600-1750 - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMark Dawson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSkin-tones mattered in early modern England. Indexing health, social status, religious affiliation and national allegiance, they helped explain (away) poverty, colonialism, war and slavery. Drawing physical distinctions as a means to power has a complex history - one belying racism's assumption that such distinctions are natural or timeless.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book examines how bodily difference was understood by the people of early modern England. Using an array of sources - from sermons, polemics, and newspapers to medical case-notes, almanacs, diaries, and dramas - it traces people's attitudes to somatic contrasts, both among themselves and, as they ventured across the Atlantic, among non-Europeans. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book demonstrates that individuals' distinctive features were thought to be innate, even as discrete populations were believed to have fleshly characteristics in common - whether similarities in skin-tone, facial profile, hair colour, or demeanour. According to most scholarship, bodies constituted from the same four elemental fluids as Adam and Eve's - the phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholic humours - were not the stuff of visceral inequality or racism. But this book contends that people routinely judged others on sight according to the ostensible balance, or complexion, their humours. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eComplexions vouched for distinctions in social status, physical cum moral fitness, national allegiance, and religious affiliation. But to establish whether this scrutiny had a racist potential, we need to determine if the people of the day had an entirely naturalistic view of themselves and the world they inhabited.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMark S. Dawson is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the Australian National University, Canberra\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 280\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.59 x 9.21 x 6.14 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e July 12, 2022\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42158197473415,"sku":"9781526163905","price":63.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/f972dcceecb67532218608370ee93fb1.webp?v=1733256892","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/bodies-complexioned-human-variation-and-racism-in-early-modern-english-culture-c-1600-1750-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}