Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Matthew McCormack is Professor of History at the University of Northampton, UK, course leader for MA History and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. His previous books include The Independent Man, Embodying the Militia in Georgian England and Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688-1928. He edited the ‘Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies’ (2015-20). He regularly blogs, and tweets at @historymatt.McCormack literally walks a mile in Georgian men’s shoes as part of his excellent, fascinating and original study ... This wonderful scholarship explores many understudied yet essential topics in the histories of footwear, masculinities, health and disability.<i></i>
Hilary Davidson, Associate Professor, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA
<i>Shoes and the Georgian Man</i> skilfully reanimates the feet which once inhabited Georgian men’s shoes. Whether walking, resting, fighting, or dancing, McCormack shows men’s feet and the shoes that clod them to have been dynamic sites for the enactment and embodiment of politics, health, and masculinity in Georgian Britain.
Serena Dyer, De Montfort University, UK
Exploring ideas of masculinity and the embodied experience of living in the past, <i>Shoes and the Georgian Man </i>is a must-read for anyone interested in the material culture of the period.
Rebecca Shawcross, Curator, Northampton Museums and Art Gallery, UK
This fascinating study provides a wealth of detail on the material and embodied history of Georgian men’s shoes.
Elaine Chalus, University of Liverpool, UK
Shoes are everyday objects but they are loaded with meaning. This book reveals how shoes played a powerful role in the wider story of shifts in gender relations in 18th-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship of shoes with the body and its movements, and therefore how what we wear on our feet relates closely to social, occupational and gender roles. It also uses footwear to explore topics such as politics, war, dance and disability.
Thinking about shoes as material objects, McCormack studied historic shoes first-hand in museums, in order to ascertain their physical properties and what they would have been like to wear. Worn shoes preserve traces of the wearer’s body in their indentations, stretches and scuffs, providing a unique primary source about their wearer. This approach forges new connections between the histories or material culture, gender and the body, and sheds new light on what it meant to be a man in the 18th century.
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Georgian men and their shoes
2 Shoes and the body
3 Shoes and politics
4 Boots and masculinity
5 Gout shoes and disability
6 Dancing feet
7 The soldier’s shoe
Conclusion: Wearing Georgian shoes
Select bibliography
Index