Balancing the Self

Mark Jackson is Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter Martin D. Moore is a Research Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter

• Introduction: balancing the self in the twentieth century – Mark Jackson and Martin D. MoorePart I: Configuring balance2 Balance and the ‘good’ diabetic in Britain, c.1900-1960 – Martin D. Moore3 From the alcoholic to the sensible drinker: alcohol health education campaigns in England – Alex Mold 4 `Look After Yourself’: visualising obesity as a public health concern in 1970s and 1980s Britain – Jane Hand Part II: Regulating imbalance5 Self-help and self-promotion: dietary advice and agency in North America and Britain – Nicos Kefalas6 Your life in your hands: teaching `relaxed living’ in post-war Britain – Ayesha Nathoo7 Pilot fatigue and the regulation of airline schedules in post-war Britain – Natasha FeinerPart III: Reconfiguring balance8 Extreme acts: narratives of balance and moderation at the limits of human performance – Vanessa Heggie 9 Self-help, marriage guidance and the making of the midlife crisis – Mark Jackson 10 Balancing contested meanings of creativity and pathology in Parkinson’s Disease – Dorothy Porter11 Conclusion: balance, malleability and anthropology: historical contexts – Chris MillardIndex

Balancing The Self provides a detailed study of the abstract concept of ‘balance’ in individual health. Each chapter provides an interesting and well-researched case study into the changing understandings and approaches to balance. Furthermore, the volume itself is well-balanced, providing a mixture of medical and political history, with an even focus across the century. The strength of the individual chapters proves this work to be useful to any scholar with an interest in selfhood and twentieth-century Britain.Louise Morgan, Social History of Medicine