Men and masculinities in modern Britain: A history for the present

by Matt Houlbrook (Editor)

Men and masculinities provides an engaging, accessible and provocative introduction to histories of masculinity for all readers interested in contemporary gender politics. The book offers a critical overview of ongoing historiographical debates and the historical making of men’s lives and identities and ideas of masculinity between the 1890s and the present day. In setting out a new agenda for the field, it makes an ambitious argument for the importance of writing histories which are present-centred and politically engaged. This means that the book engages head-on with ferocious debates about men’s social position and the status of masculinity in contemporary public life. In establishing a critical genealogy for the proliferation of this crisis talk, it sets out new ways of understanding how men’s lives and ideas of masculinity have changed over time while patriarchy and male power have persisted.

332 pages, Hardcover

Published January 16, 2024

Reviews

[C. B.]

Like any collection of this sort, Men and Masculinities is a mixed bag. The reflective essays at the end of each section do a lot to bring some cohesion to the book. Overall, it’s made me terribly excited to see how the field will develop. It’s a good snapshot of the state of discussion at the turn of the 20s.

[John Davis]

This is one of thousands of books written by feminized authors in the UK trying to impose their severely limited experiences with masculinity on Billions of men worldwide.

One gets two impressions from the writers: (1) the writers have never done anything more challenging in their lives than climbing a speed bump; (2) the writers feel inferior to men in the present, and in history, who are self actualized and enlightened beyond the mediocrity of the academic class.

The book is little more than revisionism based upon current misandry cults in the UK. The UK is the epicenter of global misandry and women's supremacy. This book is a classic example of the type of androphobia that saturates academia and the British culture.