Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.
Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920
Are men truly predisposed to violence and aggression? Is it the biological fate of males to struggle for domination over women and vie against one another endlessly?
These and related queries have long vexed philosophers, social scientists, and other students of human behavior. In Brutes in Suits, historian John Pettegrew examines theoretical writings and cultural traditions in the United States to find that, Darwinian arguments to the contrary, masculine aggression can be interpreted as a modern strategy for taking power. Drawing ideas from varied and at times seemingly contradictory sources, Pettegrew argues that traditionally held beliefs about masculinity developed largely through language and cultural habit—and that these same tools can be employed to break through the myth that brutishness is an inherently male trait.
A major re-synthesis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manhood, Brutes in Suits develops ambitious lines of research into the social science of sexual difference and professional history’s celebration of rugged individualism; the hunting-and-killing genre of popular men’s literature; that master text of hypermasculinity: college football; military culture, war making, and finding pleasure in killing; and patriarchy, sexual jealousy, and the law. This timely assessment of the evolution of masculine culture will be welcomed and debated by social and intellectual historians for years to come.
1110916510
Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920
Are men truly predisposed to violence and aggression? Is it the biological fate of males to struggle for domination over women and vie against one another endlessly?
These and related queries have long vexed philosophers, social scientists, and other students of human behavior. In Brutes in Suits, historian John Pettegrew examines theoretical writings and cultural traditions in the United States to find that, Darwinian arguments to the contrary, masculine aggression can be interpreted as a modern strategy for taking power. Drawing ideas from varied and at times seemingly contradictory sources, Pettegrew argues that traditionally held beliefs about masculinity developed largely through language and cultural habit—and that these same tools can be employed to break through the myth that brutishness is an inherently male trait.
A major re-synthesis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manhood, Brutes in Suits develops ambitious lines of research into the social science of sexual difference and professional history’s celebration of rugged individualism; the hunting-and-killing genre of popular men’s literature; that master text of hypermasculinity: college football; military culture, war making, and finding pleasure in killing; and patriarchy, sexual jealousy, and the law. This timely assessment of the evolution of masculine culture will be welcomed and debated by social and intellectual historians for years to come.
67.0
In Stock
51
Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920
Are men truly predisposed to violence and aggression? Is it the biological fate of males to struggle for domination over women and vie against one another endlessly?
These and related queries have long vexed philosophers, social scientists, and other students of human behavior. In Brutes in Suits, historian John Pettegrew examines theoretical writings and cultural traditions in the United States to find that, Darwinian arguments to the contrary, masculine aggression can be interpreted as a modern strategy for taking power. Drawing ideas from varied and at times seemingly contradictory sources, Pettegrew argues that traditionally held beliefs about masculinity developed largely through language and cultural habit—and that these same tools can be employed to break through the myth that brutishness is an inherently male trait.
A major re-synthesis of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manhood, Brutes in Suits develops ambitious lines of research into the social science of sexual difference and professional history’s celebration of rugged individualism; the hunting-and-killing genre of popular men’s literature; that master text of hypermasculinity: college football; military culture, war making, and finding pleasure in killing; and patriarchy, sexual jealousy, and the law. This timely assessment of the evolution of masculine culture will be welcomed and debated by social and intellectual historians for years to come.
John Pettegrew is an associate professor of history and director of the American Studies Program at Lehigh University and coeditor of the three-volume Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism.
Table of Contents
PrefaceIntroduction: The De-Evolutionary Turn in U.S. MasculinityDarwin and Evolutionary Psychology, Then and NowJohn Dewey, Pierre Bourdieu, and Masculinity as a Habit of Mind"The Caveman within Us" and the Masculinist Culture of Mimicry1. Rugged IndividualismFrederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis: Origins, Composition, and MeaningsTurner's Influence on the Social Psychology of the CityRadical Individualism: Masculinist Art, Angst, and Alienation in the CityDudism, Cowgirl Feminism, and the Search for Authenticity in the "Old West"2. Brute FictionsThe American Literary Genre of Hunting and KillingReading for Plot: Call of the Wild, The Virginian, and the New Male ReadershipIrony, Atavism, and Other Variations on the De-Evolutionary Theme3. College FootballThorstein Veblen and the Rise of "Exotic Ferocity" in American College FootballVictor Turner, Stanford Football, and Hypermasculine Liminal SubjectsClifford Geertz at the Big Game: "Thick Description" of Football as the Cultural Equivalent of War4. War in the HeadCivil War Memory, Blood Sacrifice, and Modern American Fighting SpiritOf Rough Riders, Blood Brothers, and Roosevelt the BerserkerWar as Sport for Doughboys, Golden Boys, and SlackersPostscript: Marine Corps Spirit and the U.S. Warrior Class, 1941–20035. Laws of Sexual SelectionRace, Lynch Law, and the Manly ProvocationMarriage, Cultural Defense in The People v. Chen, and the Heat-of-Passion Defense in TexasCompulsory Heterosexuality, the Charles Atlas Muscle-Beach Fable, and Sexual Dimorphism UnboundEpilogue: Irony, Instinct, and WarIrony, Sam Fussell's Muscle, and Masculinity as a "Parodic Tableau Vivant"Instinct, Deep Masculinity, and the Decline of MalesThe Iraq War, Hypermasculinity, and the Metaphor of DiseaseNotesEssay on SourcesIndex
This lively, well-written exploration of the 'de-evolutionary' turn in the dominant model of masculinity in the United States since the mid-nineteenth century is smart, compelling, and often tartly funny.
— Toby L. Ditz, Johns Hopkins University
From the Publisher
This lively, well-written exploration of the 'de-evolutionary' turn in the dominant model of masculinity in the United States since the mid-nineteenth century is smart, compelling, and often tartly funny.—Toby L. Ditz, Johns Hopkins University
