Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Dawson, Mark S. (Mark Stanley), 1972-

Title Bodies complexioned : human variation and racism in early modern English culture, c . 1600-1750 / Mark S. Dawson
Published Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2019

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Contents Introduction ; 1 Contemplating Christian temperaments; 2 Nativities established; 3 Bodies emblazoned; 4 Identifying the differently humoured; 5 Distempered skin and the English abroad; 6 National identities, foreign physiognomies, and the advent of whiteness ; Conclusion; Index
Summary Bodily contrasts - from the colour of hair, eyes and skin to the shape of faces and skeletons - allowed the English of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to discriminate systematically among themselves and against non-Anglophone groups. Making use of an array of sources, this book examines how early modern English people understood bodily difference. It demonstrates that individuals' distinctive features were considered innate, even as discrete populations were believed to have characteristics in common, and challenges the idea that the humoral theory of bodily composition was incompatible with visceral inequality or racism. While 'race' had not assumed its modern valence, and 'racial' ideologies were still to come, such typecasting nonetheless had mundane, lasting consequences. Grounded in humoral physiology, and Christian universalism notwithstanding, bodily prejudices inflected social stratification, domestic politics, sectarian division and international relations
Analysis Class
Colonisation
Ethnicity
Health
Human body
Humoralism
Migration
Monogenesis
Nationalism
Racism
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed May 22, 2019)
Subject Physical anthropology -- England -- History -- 17th century
Physical anthropology -- England -- History -- 18th century
Discrimination -- England -- History -- 17th century
Discrimination -- England -- History -- 18th century
Racism -- England -- History -- 17th century
Racism -- England -- History -- 18th century
NATURE -- Animals -- Mammals.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Zoology -- Mammals.
HISTORY -- Modern -- 17th Century.
Discrimination
Physical anthropology
Racism
England
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781526134493
1526134497