In this broad-ranging introduction to the study of sexuality, Gargi Bhattacharyya guides students through the key theoretical debates in the area from the early history of sexology, through Foucault's technologies of self to Judith Butler on the performance of identity. Bhattacharyya shows how these theoretical positions apply to sexuality as it is experienced in contemporary society, and covers key topics such as: * the ideology of heterosexuality * sex and the state * sex, race and 'the exotic' * age and sexuality * sex education and pornography. The book argues that the study of sexuality is an essential part of broader debates on gender, race, citizenship and community. Topical and original, it provides a systematic overview of theory combined with up-to-the minute discussion of social and race issues. It gives students a lucid map of the terrain, and an exciting starting point for their own investigations.

"Top feminist scholars apply a feminist lens to the ways American society defines and shapes women's sexuality. Sexuality, while experienced at the individual level, is a social phenomenon: Its meaning is dynamic and emerges from the social context. Power and politics tend to dictate what sexual attitudes and behaviors are considered normal and typical for girls and women, frequently with negative consequences for women's well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Here is an alternative, more positive approach to understanding an important area of behavior."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This new introduction to the sociology of gender and sexuality provides fresh insight into our rapidly changing attitudes towards sex and our understanding of masculine and feminine identities, relating the study of gender and sexuality to recent research and theory, and wider social concerns throughout the world.

Reports the complete results of the United States' most comprehensive representative survey of sexual practices in the general adult population.

This work offers an introduction to the central debates in sexuality research. Among the issues examined are the social and cultural dimensions of sex, human sexuality and sex research.

Examines the regulation of sexuality, the family and unorthodox religious beliefs in classical Athens, by placing the question in a larger comparative and theoretical framework.

In this, the third volume of an interdisciplinary history of the United States since the Civil War, Sean Dennis Cashman provides a comprehensive review of politics and economics from the tawdry affluence of the 1920s throught the searing tragedy of the Great Depression to the achievements of the New Deal in providing millions with relief, job opportunities, and hope before America was poised for its ascent to globalism on the eve of World War II. The book concludes with an account of the sliding path to war as Europe and Asia became prey to the ambitions of Hitler and military opportunists in Japan. The book also surveys the creative achievements of America's lost generation of artists, writers, and intellectuals; continuing innovations in transportation and communications wrought by automobiles and airplanes, radio and motion pictures; the experiences of black Americans, labor, and America's different classes and ethnic groups; and the tragicomedy of national prohibition. The cast of characters includes FDR, the New Dealers, Eleanor Roosevelt, George W. Norris, William E. Borah, Huey Long, Henry Ford, Clarence Darrow, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Orson Welles, Wendell Willkie, and the stars of radio and the silver screen. The first book in this series, America in the Gilded Age, is now accounted a classic for historiographical synthesis and stylisic polish. America in the Age of the Titans, covering the Progressive Era and World War I, and America in the Twenties and Thirties reveal the author's unerring grasp of various primary and secondary sources and his emphasis upon structures, individuals, and anecdotes about them. The book is lavishly illustrated with various prints, photographs, and reproductions from the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.