Anatomies
A Cultural History of the Human Body
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Narrated by:
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Philip Hoffman
About this listen
An eye-opening, spine-tingling, heartwarming tour through the extraordinary history and secrets of the human body.
The human body is the most fraught and fascinating, talked-about and taboo, unique yet universal fact of our lives. It is the inspiration for art, the subject of science, and the source of some of the greatest stories ever told. In Anatomies, acclaimed author of Periodic Tales Hugh Aldersey-Williams brings his entertaining blend of science, history, and culture to bear on this richest of subjects.
In an engaging narrative that ranges from ancient body art to plastic surgery today and from head to toe, Aldersey-Williams explores the corporeal mysteries that make us human: Why are some people left-handed and some blue-eyed? What is the funny bone, anyway? Why do some cultures think of the heart as the seat of our souls and passions, while others place it in the liver?
A journalist with a knack for telling a story, Aldersey-Williams takes part in a drawing class, attends the dissection of a human body, and visits the doctor's office and the morgue. But Anatomies draws not just on medical science and Aldersey-Williams's reporting. It draws also on the works of philosophers, writers, and artists from throughout history. Aldersey-Williams delves into our shared cultural heritage - Shakespeare to Frankenstein, Rembrandt to 2001: A Space Odyssey - to reveal how attitudes toward the human body are as varied as human history, as he explains the origins and legacy of tattooing, shrunken heads, bloodletting, fingerprinting, X-rays, and more.
From Adam's rib to van Gogh's ear to Einstein's brain, Anatomies is a treasure trove of surprising facts and stories and a wonderful embodiment of what Aristotle wrote more than two millennia ago: "The human body is more than the sum of its parts."
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The Body Has a Mind of Its Own
- How Body Maps Help You Do (Almost) Anything Better
- By: Sandra Blakeslee, Matthew Blakeslee
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Why do you still feel fat after losing weight? Why do you duck your head when you drive into an underground parking garage? Why are your kids so enthralled by video games? The answers to these questions can be found in a new understanding of how your brain interacts with your body, the space around your body, and the social world.
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This explains alot
- By Michael on 10-18-07
By: Sandra Blakeslee, and others
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The Chick and the Dead
- Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors
- By: Carla Valentine
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Using the most common postmortem process as the backbone of the narrative, The Chick and the Dead takes the listener through the process of an autopsy while also describing the history and changing cultures of our relationship with the dead. The book is full of vivid insight into what happens to our bodies in the end. Each chapter considers an aspect of an autopsy alongside an aspect of Carla's own life and work and touches on some of the more controversial aspects of our feelings toward death.
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Dull
- By Leah on 08-19-17
By: Carla Valentine
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth
- And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Morris
- Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.
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Boring Toilet Humor
- By Nemo on 01-30-20
By: Thomas Morris
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The Knife Man
- The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery
- By: Wendy Moore
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Knife Man, Wendy Moore unveils John Hunter's murky and macabre world - a world characterized by public hangings, secret expeditions to dank churchyards, and gruesome human dissections in pungent attic rooms. This is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable pioneer and his determined struggle to haul surgery out of the realms of meaningless superstitious ritual and into the dawn of modern medicine.
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Brilliant
- By Bird on 12-02-15
By: Wendy Moore
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Descartes' Bones
- A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, Frenchman Rene Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was buried after a cold and lonely deathfar from home. Sixteen years later, the pious French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes' bones and transported them to France. Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains of a philosopher who washounded from country after country on charges of atheism?
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Philosophy of Modernity
- By Roger on 06-17-09
By: Russell Shorto
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A Short History of Medicine
- Modern Library Chronicles
- By: Frank Gonzalez-Crussi
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Praised for his erudite writing, renowned scientist Frank Gonzalez-Crussi penned this concise history of medicine, beginning with the most primitive health-care practices and ending with the technology of modern medicine that we enjoy today. As with all Modern Library Chronicles, A Short History of Medicine is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in the subject.
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Dull and Disorganized
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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Eye of the Beholder
- Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing
- By: Laura Snyder
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.
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Historical book about the evolution of optics through the eyes of two geniuses
- By Memi on 04-12-17
By: Laura Snyder
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The Bonobo and the Atheist
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution. For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness.
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Great research on apes, bad research on humans
- By Christian Bonnell on 07-18-14
By: Frans de Waal
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Bonk
- The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The study of sexual physiology has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic.
Mary Roach, "The funniest science writer in the country", devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.
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Absolutely Wonderful!
- By Gurmukh on 07-05-08
By: Mary Roach
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Sex, Time, and Power
- How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.
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Interesting conjecture
- By DJKPP on 10-15-20
By: Leonard Shlain
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Written in Bone
- Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind
- By: Sue Black
- Narrated by: Sue Black
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In her memoir All That Remains, internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist Dame Sue Black recounted her life lived eye to eye with the Grim Reaper. During the course of it, she offered a primer on the basics of identifying human remains, plenty of insights into the fascinating processes of death, and a sober, compassionate understanding of its inescapable presence in our existence. Now in this book, Black builds on that memoir, taking us on a guided tour of the human skeleton and explaining how each person's life history is revealed in their bones.
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A very human story by a very believable human
- By Gary on 09-21-21
By: Sue Black
What listeners say about Anatomies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Evie M
- 12-16-17
not bad.
I found it similar to Mary Roach's books on the body (Stiff, Bonk and Gut) but without her particular humor. it had a number of novel facts )(to me) and I will probably re-listen to it at some point. enjoyed.
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1 person found this helpful
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- lunarchi
- 12-12-16
Good Listen!
Any additional comments?
I totally enjoyed Anatomies: a Cultural History of the Body by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. The narration by Philip Hoffman was great. The cultural tie-in to the various parts of the body was well done and very interesting. The audio book went too quickly and was a good listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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- lnxguit
- 08-24-19
Anatomies, literature, history, the arts
this was the best book I've read this year. Truly outstanding treatment of the relationship between anatomy, literature, history, the arts, religion... simply outstanding! excellent narration, too
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- timmothy k smith
- 01-28-23
Anatomies, is a insightful overview
A different way of learning anatomy. Not a boring science book, more like poetry or philosophy.
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- The Kindler
- 11-23-17
Better than my Anatomy Classes
The things they talk about here flow very seamlessly. What the body does, how certain things were discovered, how it is portrayed in the arts, and many other bits of info about the body are discussed here. This was a unique trip into the human anatomy and how it had been perceived over the years through many different lenses.
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2 people found this helpful
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- S. Yates
- 12-23-16
Human body as vessel, creature, landscape
Any additional comments?
3.5 stars. Entertaining tour of the human body, managing to expertly blend medicine, science, history, culture, and philosophy. The author structures the book around the body's landscape -- from individual organs (with the heart and liver getting thorough treatment), to blood and skin, to the hand and the foot and other **ahem** appendages. But beyond this, he talks about how these various parts were thought of, how they work, their changing status over time, as well as how we think of our own bodies, gender identity, and aging/immortality. A book that is both fanciful and factual. Nicely done.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Charles
- 10-29-17
From a pathologist perspective interesting
Starts off well slows down ends better. Make the sake of things in a different way which is good
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer
- 09-26-18
A brief and interesting look into anatomic culture
Liked it. The material could use more depth. My favorite part was the chapter on the nose.
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