One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair

I bought this book as a gift for two friends, and they really love it! One of them happens to be my roommate, so I get a chance to look at it whenever I please. It's not a book that you have to read cover to cover, you can open it up to any page and read a section of it. It has a lot of epic stories about people in history with facial hair...and plenty of pictures. It's a great read for anyone, man or woman, beard or no beard.

I read constantly and have dozens and dozens of books waiting for me to read-but when this one arrived I read it right away. I had to know all about beards. I LOVE facial hair on men though I don't particularly like beards. Make sense??? What I'm saying is that I like sideburns, goatees, soul patches, goatees without moustache, etc. Just seeing a man with a heavy shadow and the proverbial 5 o'clock shadow. ALL very sexy!! I would have liked more present day photos, but I liked it all. I wish someone would write a book about men's hairy legs. One thousand sets of hairy legs. Then I would really go crazy!!

I don't have a beard myself, but I know a lot of people who do, and this is a fascinating account of the history of facial hair that provides some interesting factoids and insight into the meaning of why some of us choose to wear hair on our faces. I gave this book to some of my bearded friends, and they loved it. It's a real winner.

Psychiatrist and writer Allan Peterkin has a playful and curious mind, and an obvious love of research. His past wanderings have taken him into the vagaries and varieties of the language of erotics, which he tackled enthusiastically - with a thesaurus, no less. The subject of beards is one that he admits he had never given much thought until one morning a few years ago.His interest was piqued, he says in his introduction to this delightful book, in "one of those perverse moments of inspiration." Walking to work in downtown Toronto, "rather than indulging my own thoughts as usual," he started noticing faces, and he then noticed that more than a third of the males were in some fashion bearded, soul patched, sideburned, mustachioed - and so it began. He wanted to uncover the meanings of facial hair, the "unconscious reasons" that men grew and tended beards, and even the "ritualistic symbolism of shaving." He wondered what women thought about beards. His survey expanded to his colleagues, his psychotherapy patients, and strap-hangers on the Toronto subway. (You might guess that he asked his friends, too.) He was off and running.This marvelous and generously-illustrated book is the result of his considerable ability to tackle his subject with energy, brainpower, humor and a sense of fun. It's a documentary, a history, a survey, an appreciation, and a catalogue. There are hundreds of black and white illustrations, and topical quotations from famous and not so famous beard-wearers. Chapter 6 deals with the (usually) unwanted thing: "The Feminine Beard." The compulsory beard (the Taliban being a recent and dramatic example of mandatory beardedness) is examined, too - in a chapter on religious beards. There's a "Timeline of Queer Facial Hair" among other remarkable bits of information in the chapter "The Gay Beard." Facial hair's inevitable products and labors (shaving cream, razors, clippers, trimmers, and more) are included. Chapter 13, "The Personal Beard: Grooming Strategies" is a sort of owner's manual. If Great-grand-dad is no longer around to show you how to strop a razor, you can use Peterkin's instructions.There are a lot of useful addresses and websites listed at this book's end (even "Where to Order False Facial Hair" should you need some), an extensive bibliography but, unfortunately, no index. Nonetheless this is a delightful book that is comprehensive and smart - and also a lot of fun. I know that I won't look at or think about facial hair in quite the same way ever again.