This book, first published in 1987, is both simple in conception and ambitious in intention. It aims at legitimating the new interdisciplinary field of men's studies as one of the most significant and challenging intellectual and curricular developments in academia. The fourteen essays included here are drawn from such diverse disciplines as men's studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, Black studies, biology, English literature, and gay studies.

This book, first published in 1987, is both simple in conception and ambitious in intention. It aims at legitimating the new interdisciplinary field of men's studies as one of the most significant and challenging intellectual and curricular developments in academia. The fourteen essays included here are drawn from such diverse disciplines as men's studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, Black studies, biology, English literature, and gay studies.

In this detailed investigation of ‘masculine’ gendered identity, first published in 1990, David Jackson uses his own personal history to look at the specific ways in which men become ‘masculine’. In doing so he examines, but also offers some positive challenges to, the assumed qualities and values of growing up ‘manly’. Jackson looks closely at the psychological and social forces active in his own development: relations with his father, violence at school, male banter and joking, sporting activities, boys’ comics, and sexual relations. The title is a deliberate blend between life story and critical commentary that makes use of some areas of post-structuralist theory to make visible the social and emotional processes that contribute to one man’s life history. With an innovative theoretical approach, this reissue will be of particular value to those interested in the social, psychological and cultural forces that have gone into the historical shaping of men and masculinities.

In this detailed investigation of ‘masculine’ gendered identity, first published in 1990, David Jackson uses his own personal history to look at the specific ways in which men become ‘masculine’. In doing so he examines, but also offers some positive challenges to, the assumed qualities and values of growing up ‘manly’. Jackson looks closely at the psychological and social forces active in his own development: relations with his father, violence at school, male banter and joking, sporting activities, boys’ comics, and sexual relations. The title is a deliberate blend between life story and critical commentary that makes use of some areas of post-structuralist theory to make visible the social and emotional processes that contribute to one man’s life history. With an innovative theoretical approach, this reissue will be of particular value to those interested in the social, psychological and cultural forces that have gone into the historical shaping of men and masculinities.

This thought-provoking book, first published in 1991, examines sexual politics in a world which is being radically changed by the challenges of feminism. Seidler explores how men have responded to feminism, and the contradictory feelings men have towards dominant forms of masculinity. Seidler’s stimulating and original analysis of social and political theory connects personally to everyday issues in people’s lives. It reflects the growing importance of sexual and personal politics within contemporary politics and culture, and demonstrates clearly the challenge that feminism brings to our inherited forms of morality, politics and sexuality.

Recently, the U.S. has seen a rise in misogynistic and race-based violence perpetrated by men expressing a sense of grievance, from "incels" to alt-right activists. Grounding sociological, historical, political, and economic analyses of masculinity through the lens of cultural narratives in many forms and expressions, The Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and Culture suggests that how we examine the stories that shape us in turn shapes our understanding of our current reality and gives us language for imagining better futures. Masculinity is more than a description of traits associated with particular performances of gender. It is more than a study of gender and social power. It is an examination of the ways in which gender affects our capacity to engage ethically with each other in complex human societies. This volume offers essays from a range of established, global experts in American masculinity as well as new and upcoming scholars in order to explore not just what masculinity once meant, has come to mean, and may mean in the future in the U.S.; it also articulates what is at stake with our conceptions of masculinity.