“Winning, cheeky, and illuminating….What appears initially as a folly with a
look-at-this cover and title becomes, thanks to Radke’s intelligence and
curiosity, something much meatier, entertaining, and wise.” –The Washington Post
“Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction.” —Esquire, Best
Books of 2022 So Far
A “carefully researched and reported work of cultural history” (The New York
Times) that explores how one body part has come to mean so much—now one of the
most anticipated books of 2022.
Whether we love them or hate them, think they’re sexy, think they’re strange,
consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a
complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans,
critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much
more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman’s butt, in particular, is forever
being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations
trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks
while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A
Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke
is determined to find out.
Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart” (Publishers Weekly, starred
review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century
London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir
Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the mountains of Arizona, where every year
humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets
evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose
measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness
gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.” She also examines the central
importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the
“Venus Hottentot,” Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women…
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