Fat Boys

Sander L. Gilman is Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emory University and is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Frontiers: Essays on Bodies, Histories, and Identities; Smart Jews: The Construction of the Image of Jewish Superior Intelligence (Nebraska 1996); and Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity.

• PrefaceIntroduction: Fat Is a Man's Issue1. Fat Boys in the Cultural History of the West2. Fat Boys Writing and Writing Fat Boys3. Patient Zero: Falstaff4. How Fat Detectives Think (And Fat Villains Act)5. Fat Ballplayers and the Bodies of Fat MenConclusion: Cutting into the Future of Fat BoysNotes Index

"Gilman opens a valuable conversation about the cultural history of obesity that examines how we have come to understand—and misunderstand—the condition."—New York Times Book Review "Forcefully written and very well timed. . . . Entertaining."—Elaine Showalter, Times Literary Supplement "Gilman uncovers the surprising complexity associated with fat men in a clear and succinct manner."—Library Journal "This amusing historical and literary review ranges widely, covering subjects such as Santa Claus, the Nutty Professor, and gastric bypass surgery."—Choice "A welcome survey of representations of male obesity in western culture. Historian Sander Gilman uses character studies of what he terms 'fat boys' from antiquity to the present, to 'negotiate the complexities of defining the healthy and the ill.'"—Carolyn Thomas de la Peña, American Studies