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Boys: Masculinities in Contemporary Culture. Edited by Paul Smith. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, p. 326, $19.00.
The first thing a reader notices about this book is the cover. The pink jacket with the word "BOYS" in gigantic black typeface beside a picture of michelangelo's David suggests that this is not a typical book on masculinity. Paul Smith's anthology does not fail to meet these expectations. Boys deviates from earlier discourses on masculinities. Primarily, Boys is not bogged down by psychoanalytic theory, a tendency of other authors such as Roger Horrocks. Moreover, as Smith points out, the work is less a celebration of "other" masculinities and more an investigation into the way masculinity is articulated (p. 4).
The basic premise of this work is the notion that masculinity is a more multifarious entity than feminist writings have suggested. The concept of a single archetype of masculinity does not adequately reveal the complexities of manhood and alienates various sexualities and minorities. Conceptualizing manhood in terms of masculinities articulates the notion that a number of overlapping ideals of masculinity co-exist at any given time. Of course, this is nothing new. Many other authors such as...