Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

by Florence Williams
Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

by Florence Williams

Paperback

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Overview

An engaging narrative about an incredible, life-giving organ and its imperiled modern fate.

Did you know that breast milk contains substances similar to cannabis? Or that it’s sold on the Internet for 262 times the price of oil? Feted and fetishized, the breast is an evolutionary masterpiece. But in the modern world, the breast is changing. Breasts are getting bigger, arriving earlier, and attracting newfangled chemicals. Increasingly, the odds are stacked against us in the struggle with breast cancer, even among men. What makes breasts so mercurial—and so vulnerable?

In this informative and highly entertaining account, intrepid science reporter Florence Williams sets out to uncover the latest scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology, and medicine. Her investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause, taking her from a plastic surgeon’s office where she learns about the importance of cup size in Texas to the laboratory where she discovers the presence of environmental toxins in her own breast milk. The result is a fascinating exploration of where breasts came from, where they have ended up, and what we can do to save them.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393345070
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 05/06/2013
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

A contributing editor at Outside magazine, Florence Williams is the author of Breasts, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Nature Fix. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, and many other outlets. She lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Planet Breast 11

Chapter 1 For Whom the Bells Toll 29

Chapter 2 Circular Beginnings 65

Chapter 3 Plumbing: A Primer 79

Chapter 4 Fill Her Up 95

Chapter 5 Toxic Assets: The Growing Breast 139

Chapter 6 Shampoo, Macaroni, and the American Girl: Spring Comes Early 167

Chapter 7 The Pregnancy Paradox 223

Chapter 8 What's for Dinner? 247

Chapter 9 Holy Crap: Herman, Hamlet, and the All-Important Human Gut 271

Chapter 10 Sour Milk 309

Chapter 11 An Unfamiliar Wilderness: Periods, the Pill, and HRT 341

Chapter 12 The Few. The Proud. The Afflicted: Can Marines Solve the Puzzle of Breast Cancer? 367

Chapter 13 Are You Dense? The Aging Breast 397

Chapter 14 The Future of Breasts 425

Acknowledgments 437

Notes 443

Permission Credits 523

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[A] remarkably informative and compellingwork of discovery." —-Booklist Starred Review

Mary Roach

Florence Williams's double-D talents as a reporter and writer lift this book high above the genre and separate it from the ranks of ordinary science writing. Breasts is illuminating, surprising, clever, important. Williams is an author to savor and look forward to.

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