Description
Book SynopsisThis ambitious and wide-ranging study of late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture and thought transverses texts of evolutionary biology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, political propaganda, fiction, historiography of Nazism, and scholarship on comparative genocide to analyze the notion that mass violence is sexually motivated.
Trade ReviewIn this groundbreaking and eminently readable study, Alison Moore addresses the ways in which certain nonnormative sexual modalities...have been used to shore up a dominant mythic narrative of historical progress.... [T]his is an assured and convincing work of genuine intellectual depth that significantly contributes to our understanding both of the history of sexuality and of how sexuality is used to make history. It will be of great interest to those working in political theory and the history of ideas, as well as those in the broad interdisciplinary field of gender and sexuality studies in general and the subfield of the history of sexuality in particular. It deserves, in sum, to be widely read, much discussed, and recommended to students at all levels. * Journal of the History of Sexuality *
Alison M. Moore traces the origins of sadism and masochism back to a rich cultural discourse about sexuality that Krafft-Ebing condensed and transformed. She demonstrates with lucidity and depth that so-called perversion has and continues to stand in for the perceived decadence of modern culture in a variety of Left and Right-wing responses to sadomasochism, manifested most often in discussions about the Marquis de Sade. Her work addresses Freud, Horkheimer and Adorno, Gilles Deleuze and others with great agility, and her discussion of the historiography of Nazism in relation to tired discussions of Nazi ‘perversion’ is particularly illuminating. The book is original, thought-provoking, and combats the ‘historical teleology’ it identifies by demonstrating brilliantly how it came to be. -- Carolyn J. Dean, Yale University
This important new book provides an insightful and original analysis of the complex inter-relationships between politics, history, and sexuality, as mediated through cultural conceptualizations of masochism and sadism. Moore’s text, which ranges from the nineteenth century to the postwar period, constitutes an exciting intervention in contemporary studies of sexuality and the place of sadomasochism within these. Essential reading for scholars and students of sexual history and politics. -- Elizabeth Stephens, Southern Cross University
Working across an impressive range of genres and disciplinary fields, this richly documented study will bring a thoroughly revised understanding of sadism and masochism. It shows convincingly how contemporary understandings of sexuality continue to be shaped by nineteenth-century notions of progress and decadence. -- Peter Cryle, University of Queensland
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Perversion, Gender, and Nature in Nineteenth-Century Visions of Pleasure, Violence, and Civilization Chapter 2: Psychoanalytic Sexual Teleology Chapter 3: Civilized Perversions in Interwar Europe Chapter 4: Critical Myths of Nazi Perversion: Sadism, Homosexuality, Enlightenment, and Barbarism Chapter 5: The Polarizing Myth of “Real” Sadists and Masochists Chapter 6: Fantasies of the “Sadiconazista” Chapter 7: Nazi Sexual Pathology in Historiography Chapter 8: Genocidal Pleasures
