This volume aims to advance our understanding of beauty's role in modern consumer societies by bringing together fresh scholarship that addresses a common set of questions from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including especially history, but also black studies, women's studies, German studies, sociology, and anthropology.

'Chock full of useful information and marvelous counterintuitive insights alike, this spectacular collection demonstrates the enormous cultural and economic ramifications of the global pursuit of beauty. Ranging from Jewish pageant queens and the Nazi cosmetics industry through Kikuyu headshavings in Kenya, lipstick in Sumatra, and muscle-men in the postwar U.S. to Muslim male nose jobs in present-day Tehran, the essays scramble all our assumptions about what is traditional and what is modern. This is a fabulous and compelling book.' - Dagmar Herzog, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA, and author of Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History

'This volume reveals the centrality of beauty and appearance in modern societies, illuminating consumer cultures, technologies of the body, and concepts of identity and difference in the twentieth century. With topics ranging from cosmetics and soap to beauty pageants and plastic surgery, these excellent essays give particular insight into the tensions between the global expansion of Western beauty culture and the tenacity of local practices.' - Kathy Peiss, Nichols Professor of American History, University of Pennsylvania, USA, and author of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style