Skin: A Natural History
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.41 (789 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0520242815 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 281 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-01-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Skin: A Natural History places the rich cultural canvas of skin within its broader biological context for the first time, and the result is a tremendously engaging look at ourselves.. She examines the modern human obsession with age-related changes in skin, especially wrinkles. Skin: A Natural History celebrates the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations. Our intimate connection with the world, skin protects us while advertising our health, our identity, and our individuality. This dazzling synthetic overview, written with a poetic touch and taking many intriguing side excursions, is a compl
Mitchell Green said stimulating, insightful book. Jablonski's book is well written, well informed, and a deeply insightful discussion of one of our least appreciated, but most important organs. She deftly, gently guides the reader through some basic scientific principles governing the functioning of the skin, and prov. Pavel Somov, Ph.D., author of "Lotus Effect," "Present Perfect," & "Eating the Moment" said "Skin: A Natural History" - a Papyrus of Human History. Originally conceptualized, richly illustrated compendium on the bio-psycho-social meaning of skin. A great addition to the still very skin-deep genre of general public skin literature, a must-read follow-up to the writings of skin gurus as Andre Virel, Ashley Montagu a. A broad history of skin CJ This is not quite what I was expecting but pleasing nonetheless. The author is an anthropologist, so the book has a broad cultural focus. The more scientific sections are quite good, but short. She spends a good amount of time talking about animal skin as well as non-A
. At her most compelling, Jablonski demonstrates that our hairlessness didn't evolve after humans adopted clothing or because our distant hominid relatives splashed through an aquatic phase like dolphins and whales; rather, it's inextricably linked to our abundance of sweat glands. Penn State's anthropology chair, Jablonski nimbly interprets scientific data for a lay audience, and her geeky love for her discipline is often infectious. Similarly intriguing are the notions that indigenous people of the hot tropics are tall and lean because mammals with a high ratio of skin surface area to body weight keep cool in intense heat, and that women have lighter skin color than men because females need to maximize vitamin D production during pregnancy and breastfeeding. (Oct.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Publishers Weekly This amply illustrated rhapsody to the body's larg