This book offers an innovative account of manliness in Britain between
1760 and 1900. Using diverse textual, visual and material culture
sources, it shows that masculinities were produced and disseminated
through men's bodies -often working-class ones - and the emotions and
material culture associated with them. The book analyses idealised men
who stimulated desire and admiration, including virile boxers, soldiers,
sailors and blacksmiths, brave firemen and noble industrial workers. It
also investigates unmanly men, such as drunkards, wife-beaters and
masturbators, who elicited disgust and aversion. Unusually, Manliness in
Britain runs from the eras of feeling, revolution and reform to those of
militarism, imperialism, representative democracy and mass media,
periods often dealt with separately by historians of masculinities.