John D. Fair

Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell

Muscletown USA

For most of the twentieth century, the “Mr. America” image epitomized muscular manhood. From humble beginnings in 1939 at a small gym in Schenectady, New York, the Mr. America Contest became the world’s premier bodybuilding event over the next thirty years. Rooted in ancient Greek virtues of health, fitness, beauty, and athleticism, it showcased some of the finest specimens of American masculinity. Interviewing nearly one hundred major figures in the physical culture movement (including twenty-five Mr. Americas) and incorporating copious printed and manuscript sources, John D. Fair has created the definitive study of this iconic phenomenon. Revealing the ways in which the contest provided a model of functional and fit manhood, Mr. America captures the event’s path to idealism and its slow descent into obscurity. As the 1960s marked a turbulent transition in American society—from the civil rights movement to the rise of feminism and increasing acceptance of homosexuality—Mr. America changed as well. Exploring the influence of other bodily displays, such as the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia contests and the Miss America Pageant, Fair focuses on commercialism, size obsession, and drugs that corrupted the competition’s original intent. Accessible and engaging, Mr. America is a compelling portrayal of the glory days of American muscle.

The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon

Mr. America

David L. Chapman

John Fair and David Chapman tell the story of how film-makers use and manipulate the appearance and performances of muscular men and women to enhance the appeal of their productions. The authors show how this practice, deeply rooted in western epistemological traditions, evolved from the art of photography through magic lantern and stage shows into the motion picture industry, arguing that the sight of muscles in action induced a higher degree of viewer entertainment. From Eugen Sandow to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, muscular actors appear capable of performing the miraculous, and with the aid of stuntmen and filming contrivances, they do. By such means, muscles are used to perfect the art of illusion, inherent in movie-making from its earliest days.

Perfecting the Art of Illusion

Muscles in the Movies

"Harold Temperley was a leading Cambridge diplomatic historian of the interwar period and Master of Peterhouse at the time of his death in 1939. This biography sheds new light on the development of the British historical profession and contributes to our understanding of Cambridge life in the early twentieth century. It focuses on how Temperley's work affected the larger worlds of intellectual life and international politics outside his college." "A basic premise of this study is that Temperley was influenced by spiritual factors, especially the romantic literature and cultures of eastern Europe. He also exhibited, from his Victorian upbringing, a great confidence in the rightness of his own country's liberal institutions (in the Gladstone-Acton mode), and constantly sought intervention in the realm of public affairs. Early chapters lay a basis for Temperley's moral worldview and show how he and other scholars of the Cambridge History School struggled over whether history should be valued "for its own sake" or whether it should be regarded as a "school for statesmanship."" "During World War I, Temperley entered the active life. After brief service in Gallipoli he was assigned to the War Office, where he gathered intelligence on the Balkans and daily influenced British policy through his knowledge of that area and his ability to get on with the right people. At the end of the war he served as an "agent on mission" in southeastern Europe and was a member of the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference. Vehemently anti-Italian, Temperley was instrumental in frustrating Italian Irredentist aims along the eastern Adriatic. Later he represented Britain on the Albanian boundary commission and served as a special advisor to A. J. Balfour with Britain's League of Nations delegation in Geneva in 1921." "Between the wars Temperley continued to mingle with persons in the highest echelons of government and academic affairs throughout Britain, Europe, and America. He gained notoriety for his compilation (with G. P. Gooch) of British Documents on the Origins of the War. This tempestuous story adds substantially to U. F. G. Eyck's biography of Gooch. Temperley also initiated The (Cambridge) Historical Journal and wrote a textbook (with A. J. Grant) entitled Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, which is still used in many British educational institutions. His most famous pupil was Herbert Butterfield, whose seminal idea and book, The Whig Interpretation of History, was influenced by continuous contacts with his mentor at Peterhouse." "As president of the International Historical Congress as well as through a continuous outpouring of scholarly works, Temperley was an influential figure in the historical profession in the 1930s. However, his greatest influence occurred in the public realm when Neville Chamberlain read Temperley's book The Foreign Policy of Canning as he was formulating plans for a settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem in 1938. This work created an appealing historical parallel between George Canning's ideas in the 1820s and his own approach to Hitler, and it had a definite impact on Chamberlain's conduct during the Munich crisis."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

John D. Fair

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