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The Face : A Cultural History
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Overview
"An ambitious, entertaining survey of human perception."--The New York Times "Exuberant... Its historical morsels will stay with you long after you finish."--The Economist
Award-winning historian Fay Bound-Alberti synthesizes over twenty years of research to offer a sweeping cultural history of our most decisive--and sometimes divisive--body part. What's in a face? And how much power does it hold? The Face begins in the historical West, where we learn how humans have interpreted faces and connected specific features with ideas of morality, social hierarchy, psychology, and so much more, setting the stage for the cultural biases that now inform our everyday interactions across the globe. We then watch how new technologies that reflect or alter our face's appearance have transformed our idea of the Self over time--from the growth of portraiture in the Renaissance and the mass production of mirrors and photography in the nineteenth century, to twenty-first century innovations like digital avatars and face transplants. And throughout, we explore the face as the cultural artifact that it is: a surface that grows, is adorned, and then displayed, influencing who we are and might become as both individuals and members of society.
Readers will walk away with a new understanding of the history, power, and future of the face, alongside its role in modern identity, genetics, technology, and beyond.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781538766538
- ISBN-10: 1538766531
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
- Publish Date: June 2026
- Dimensions: 9.25 x 6.29 x 1.04 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.01 pounds
- Page Count: 288
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What do our faces reveal? After all, it’s not just models, actors, politicians and other famous sorts whose visages are easily viewable; seemingly everyone’s faces are everywhere all the time. We use our faces to identify ourselves, to follow trends, to align with others . . . but what are we conveying via our many guises? Fay Bound-Alberti’s lively and compelling The Face: A Cultural History deeply considers such questions as it guides readers on a tour of the face’s presence, importance and transformation across time. In nine fascinating, far-ranging chapters, Bound-Alberti—founder of the Centre for Technology and the Body at King’s College London—explains the evolution of facial representation in portraiture and photography, considers the role of mirrors in “the modern story of facehood,” describes fetal facial development, ponders the impact of plastic surgery and face transplants and much more. The author believes that “the story of facial expression is ultimately a story about power—who gets to define what the face is saying, whose expression is considered normal or abnormal, whose face is read as trustworthy or dangerous.” In ancient cave art, animals’ faces were more detailed than humans’ (“If people worked collectively . . . and preservation of that connectedness was critical to survival, then perhaps there would be no point in marking out any one individual, or face, as unique”). Conversely, realistic Roman statues emphasized “the symbolic and literal importance of the figurehead” and Renaissance portraits “communicated a story . . . [so] they were also used in brokering marriage.” While photography introduced “a massive moment of democratization”—those lacking wealth or power could finally possess images of themselves—biases remain in modern technology like image search and facial recognition. Is there hope for change? Well, “building holistic systems, changing the way we use training data . . . and pushing for regulatory frameworks” would be an excellent start, Bound-Alberti writes. So, too, would remembering “faces lie at the heart of our shared humanity” and are “instruments of communion, not commodities for consumption.” The Face is a thought-provoking, often moving read perfect for anyone who wishes to look inward as they put their best face forward.
What do our faces reveal? After all, it’s not just models, actors, politicians and other famous sorts whose visages are easily viewable; seemingly everyone’s faces are everywhere all the time. We use our faces to identify ourselves, to follow trends, to align with others . . . but what are we conveying via our many guises? Fay Bound-Alberti’s lively and compelling The Face: A Cultural History deeply considers such questions as it guides readers on a tour of the face’s presence, importance and transformation across time. In nine fascinating, far-ranging chapters, Bound-Alberti—founder of the Centre for Technology and the Body at King’s College London—explains the evolution of facial representation in portraiture and photography, considers the role of mirrors in “the modern story of facehood,” describes fetal facial development, ponders the impact of plastic surgery and face transplants and much more. The author believes that “the story of facial expression is ultimately a story about power—who gets to define what the face is saying, whose expression is considered normal or abnormal, whose face is read as trustworthy or dangerous.” In ancient cave art, animals’ faces were more detailed than humans’ (“If people worked collectively . . . and preservation of that connectedness was critical to survival, then perhaps there would be no point in marking out any one individual, or face, as unique”). Conversely, realistic Roman statues emphasized “the symbolic and literal importance of the figurehead” and Renaissance portraits “communicated a story . . . [so] they were also used in brokering marriage.” While photography introduced “a massive moment of democratization”—those lacking wealth or power could finally possess images of themselves—biases remain in modern technology like image search and facial recognition. Is there hope for change? Well, “building holistic systems, changing the way we use training data . . . and pushing for regulatory frameworks” would be an excellent start, Bound-Alberti writes. So, too, would remembering “faces lie at the heart of our shared humanity” and are “instruments of communion, not commodities for consumption.” The Face is a thought-provoking, often moving read perfect for anyone who wishes to look inward as they put their best face forward.