Summary
Robert Muchembled: Orgasm and the West
History of pleasure from the 16th century to the present day
Can orgasm be united with history? As an individual, almost inexpressible emotion, and at the same time a cultural reality, orgasm belongs to and escapes collective experience. The history of the orgasm is the history of the hidden body, forbidden desire, passion caught between taboos and moral principles. Documents testifying to this physical, sometimes libertine experience, lie buried deep in archives and libraries, which does not diminish their incredible number and astonishing power. Robert Muchambled's book brings to light great sources that invite us to look at the past in a new way, which for a long time has been "fixed" due to soul-caring choices, if we do not discover the "background of the scenography" and realize that the sublimation of erotic impulses was not only an object of religious asceticism but a true hidden driver of Western dynamism until the 1960s.
Robert Muchambled was born in 1944 in Liévin in France. He is one of the most famous contemporary French historians, a professor of modern history at the University of Paris-Nord and a guest lecturer at several American universities. His areas of interest are the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, civic culture, the history of crime and sexuality, and his research into the phenomenon of witches is particularly important. The most important works: "The Invention of Modern Man", "The History of Greater Paris", "Society, Culture and Mentalities in Modern France", "Popular Culture and Elite Culture in Modern France", "The Witch in the Village", "Orgasm and the West - a story of pleasure from the 16th century to the present day", "Women's Passions", "History of Violence".
Biblos Newsletter
New titles, special copies and quiet recommendations from the antiquarian bookshop.