Sex and the Eighteenth Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America
Thomas A. Foster, . . Beacon, $28.95 (223pp) ISBN 978-0-8070-5038-5
This compelling study of 18th-century male gender mores and sexuality is filled with engrossing historical details, demonstrating that 18th-century American ideas about masculinity were complexly tied to religion, economics and the body. For example, a 1746 newspaper article proposed a tax on single people, since they "promise no help to the future generation"; American colonists understood male effeminacy to be as much a sign of wasteful consumption as sexual deviance; and in 1742 Rev. John Cleveland referred to God as "his first husband." Foster, assistant professor of history at DePaul University, has mined a variety of primary sources, including letters and diaries of colonial men, 18th-century Boston newspapers and moral guidebooks such as Daniel Lewes's 1725
Reviewed on: 07/24/2006
Genre: Nonfiction