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The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity/ty, by George L. Mosse. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 232 pp. $25.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-19-510101-4.
MICHAEL SCHWALBE
North Carolina State University
George Mosse's The Image of Man reminded me of what I like and dislike about reading history. On the one hand, I like to learn about how things got to be the way they are. And Mosse certainly helps us see how the modern stereotype of manhood came to be what it is. On the other hand, history like this, telescoping across centuries, squeezes agency and the messiness of everyday life out of the picture. It can seem that things got to be the way they are because the actions of a few key players "met the needs of society." That's something of the sense I get from Mosse's book. He identifies those he takes to be the key playersthe public shapers and propagators of the manly ideal-but he does less well at explaining why, or to what extent, the image appealed to the common folk.
As Mosse tells the story, the image of the manly ideal, or the stereotype of modern masculinity, began to take shape in late eighteenth-century Europe. This was a time of rapid industrial growth, of struggles for national security, and of challenges to old hierarchies. What people longed for in this chaos of modernization, Mosse says, were symbols that could quench their fear of change, while sustaining hope that change would lead to progress. It was the male body-or rather an idealized image of a beautifully sculpted male body-that was put forth to meet this...