The tyranny of beauty

This book looks at stratagems, both contemporary and historical, employed by both men and women in the cause of fashionable beauty. Are they for status, for feelings of personal aesthetic satisfaction, or are they all in the cause of sexual attraction? It reveals a catalogue of behaviour, sometimes tragic, but frequently comic, which throws much light on one of the more mysterious aspects of human psychology. There is evidence too that women are at last beginning to challenge traditional concepts of attractiveness, while men are perhaps becoming more slavish in their pursuit of beauty.