American Beauty: A Social History...Through Two Centuries of the American Idea, Ideal, and Image of the Beautiful Woman
This is a fascinating and immensely readable social history of changing American definitions and standards of beauty. . . . Most importantly, [Banner] explains how the various trends relate to other social and cultural events in different historical periods and interprets their meaning for us. --Library Journal[Banner] has studied not only the history of dress and cosmetics and beauty contests, but the history of exercise and health reform, hairdressing, vaudeville, magazine illustration, the bicycle, boxing, May Day celebrations and many other subjects. . . . American Beauty is an admirable and necessary work. There has been nothing like it up to now. --Alison Lurie, New York review of BooksBeauty has long been a source of power for women; and the pursuit of that power has had many an amusing aspect as this entertaining history makes abundantly clear. But it has also had less pleasant consequences. For the pursuit of beauty, as the author reminds us, has also been  the most divisive, and ultimately, the most oppressive  of all the aspects of women s separate culture. --Carl N. Degler, The New York Times Book Review