Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America

by John F. Kasson

A remarkable new work from one of our premier historians

In his exciting new book, John F. Kasson examines the signs of crisis in American life a century ago, signs that new forces of modernity were affecting men's sense of who and what they really were.

When the Prussian-born Eugene Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder, toured the United States in the 1890s, Florenz Ziegfeld cannily presented him as the "Perfect Man," representing both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity extolling self-development and self-fulfillment. Then, when Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan swung down a vine into the public eye in 1912, the fantasy of a perfect white Anglo-Saxon male was taken further, escaping the confines of civilization but reasserting its values, beating his chest and bellowing his triumph to the world. With Harry Houdini, the dream of escape was literally embodied in spectacular performances in which he triumphed over every kind of threat to masculine integrity -- bondage, imprisonment, insanity, and death. Kasson's liberally illustrated and persuasively argued study analyzes the themes linking these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context. Concern with the white male body -- with exhibiting it and with the perils to it --reached a climax in World War I, he suggests, and continues with us today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Pop Culture, Gender, Social Issues, Biography, Gender Studies

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

John F. Kasson is a professor of history and American studies at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and the author of Amusing the Million, among many other seminal works of cultural history. He lives in Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, where to begin with this book. At first, I thought this would be an interesting read for class just from the intro. However, as I got further into this book, I realized the argument is skewed, the citation (internal) is severely lacking, all-in-all this was a history book, and that it could not keep my attention. It pained me to actually read this. I understand that some history is necessary for a book like this, but don't skew the information in it to fit your criteria. Bring ALL the facts, then present your argument. HOWEVER if you bring all the facts, don't put the reader to sleep. Please. That's just what this book did, sadly. It didn't impress me. There are true things in it, yet I don't know how those three affected modernity. Look at the guys walking around today: they don't fit the criteria of the 20th century. Regardless I'm not a fan.

Conclusion

Maybe I'll read this again. However, that is very unlikely. I can't say I recommend it; it just isn't that good.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kasson is accessible to the non-academic audience (which is great), but the way the book is organized is a bit odd. Each chapter follows a semi-biographical narrative for each of the stars---here's my complaint: all of the historical context us in the introduction. All of it. Kasson doesn't bother giving much more than generalized callbacks to the information needed to understand Sandow, Houdini, and Tarzan.

The chapter on Eugen Sandow is really well done but the wheels start to come off the wagon as the author pivots into the life of Harry Houdini. Some of the sources are shaky or rely too heavily on what Houdini said/reported/retold. By the time I reached Tarzan in the last chapter I discovered that this section was more about the job Edgar Rice Burroughs hated than Tarzan himself. An odd ending to a book that I honestly expected to like more.

Rating: 3.5/5

[MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exploration of three popular culture he-men, and what they meant for pre-WWI white men who were growing fretful about their masculinity. Kasson writes really engaging backdoor biographies of Houdini, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the strongman Eugen Sandow, and cleverly picks elements of their performance, image, or celebrity to explore male anxieties and aspirations in the new twentieth century (the section on Burroughs' work writing for business magazines of the period, which were filled with unsubtle advertisements preying on male insecurities, is just fantastic) - the book is full of useful and well-analyzed images and insightful writing, and it was greatly enjoyable.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book! Clear, entertaining, and very perceptive. Perfect for people interested in late 19th century/early 20th century culture, gender, media, and entertainment history.

[Anirudh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had picked this book out from a 2 dollar book shelf because the title seemed interesting. The title did deliver what it promised and even though the themes represented by each character seemed to make sense it did seem forced at times.
Reading the book was like attending a social science lecture in college, where the professor sidebars into multiple stories to ultimately come to the same conclusion. The author does that as well, bringing in other current affairs and trends of the time to illustrate the connectivity of the themes.

The author talks about the advent if the white male body in the beginning of the twentieth century when urbanization and modernization had changed the traditional white male roles and led to an apprehension among the men in the US. Each character in this story - Eugene Sandow, Houdini and Edgar Wright /Tarzan represent a male fantasy of metamorphosis and escape from the modern life to s life where they can be back on the social , racial pyramid.
The book has short biographies of each it's titular characters- Eugene Sandow is a body builder and exhibitionist who redefined male masculinity. Houdini is of course the greatest magician and escape artist of his generation. Finally, Edgar Wright Borroughs is a failed business man looking for a break in life who manages to create a character who captures the dreams and fantasies of other men like him. Of these, Houdini's biography was my favorite. The story of his beginnings, his shot to popularity, his death defying feats and his relationships were a proper rags to riches story and made me more interested in him as as a person than a performer.
The writer, I thought did a good analysis in dissecting each character's history, along with the prevailing white male dilemma and how it shaped the popularity of the character's performance- Sandow's exhibitionism of physical manliness, Houdini's performance of man's ambition to defy death and authority, and ultimately Tarzan's freedom and mastery over both nature and civilization.
While each character addresses the freedom of white male, it buttresses the existing gender and racial stereotypes. Women still play the specific gender role and all other races still remain below the white male. This is perhaps the reason why all three became popular.

Reading about US in the early twentieth century was a good socio history lesson as well on how the role of gender, race, capitalism all intersected to create the modern society as we know it today and how even today these aspects of the male body continue to remain popular in imagination, even though they may be becoming more diverse than just the white male body.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheguei ao final deste livro bastante satisfeito ao ter em consideração que minhas hipóteses para a compra desta publicação foram bem embasadas. Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America lança mesmo algumas boas considerações para entendermos a ascensão dos super-heróis nos Estados Unidos da América. O autor parte do pressuposto que três grandes figuras forjaram os ideiais de masculinidade americana no século XX. Foram eles, Eugen Sandow, estrela da vaudeville e bodybuilder que ficou conhecido como o "homem pefeito", que trouxe um novo padrão do que deveria ser o homem ideal em termos físicos; Harry Houdini, o grande mágico escapista, que provou que um grande homem deveria estar desafiando a si mesmo e aos seus limites; e finalmente, o Tarzan, personagem criado por Edgard Rice Burroughs, que unia estes dois estados em pregnância para o do "bom selvagem", o homem em liberdade, que por ser intocado pela civilização possuía um bom coração e nenhum mal em suas intenções. Um livro muito interessante que vai a fundo dentro destes três maravilhosamente viris personagens, que nem sabiam o estrago que viram fazer anos depois na sociedade.

[Thomas Santomartino · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good overview of how Sandow, Houdini, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan influenced the views of manhood and masculinity from the late 1800s to mid 20th century. There is some commentary on contemporary culture and masculine identity but it takes up only a small portion of the book. It has lots of great photos and is very informative if you want to explore the good and bad of the this topic in depth.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an unusual idea for a book. It is highly interesting, every detail and in particularly the time periods involved. I learned som interesting tid bits from this re-telling of the stories of each of the protagonists. As always, though, for me, the most riveting of all is the tragic tale of Harry Houdini

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting perspective on the history of American masculinity.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kasson was a professor of mine at UNC-CH, and though I made little impact on him (I made little impact on anyone during those dark days, so loaded was I on various substances), his lectures on American culture changed the direction of my intellectual life (""What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is"). This book fashions a coherent narrative out of three somewhat disparate subjects, examining the concept of white masculinity through a prosopographical study of early 20th century icons Sandow, Houdini, and ER Burroughs (with occasional digressions to examine other noteworthy individuals). There's nothing that's Bourdieu-level mindblowing here, which one wouldn't expect from an American historian working on an American topic, but Kasson's about as readable as it comes where this stuff is concerned, and HT&TPM is another strong effort. Full disclosure: I'm working on what's essentially a follow-up to this book with Chapel Hill Press that'll focus on Charles Atlas, Steve Reeves, Jim Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and LeBron James, taking the story from 1920 up to the present and examining crucial issues of race that are omitted here. So yeah, this formula, however bewildering it might initially seem, has proved quite useful for me.

[Kaufmak · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read this book, it was still relatively new, not quite ground breaking, but still fresh. In the cascade of studies about masculinity, whiteness and body image in the ensuing decade, this book still holds up pretty well. Kasson examines three male figures from the turn of the century and discusses how they all contributed to the masculine image of the day, an image that in many ways we still admire, promote and covet. Within the discussion Kasson draws out the ties between race, civilization and culture. All three of the subjects are Horatio Alger-like stories in their transformation from weak, small Victorian men, to objects of power, beauty and sexual energy. It was as Kasson discusses a reaffirmation of the white male, a response to the "crisis of masculinity" at the turn of the century (not to be confused with the crisis in the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, and current crisis that boys are not as smart as girls.) I can't remember if this was also the book that discusses the journeys into the wilderness by middle-class men to reclaim their manliness, but it would have fit in quite nicely.

[Marya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. This book seeks out a pattern between three men to better illuminate how modernity shaped people's perception of the male body. While it was interesting to learn about Sandow, there wasn't much illumination of the larger world going on. I gave up on it when I realized the Houdini chapter would be more of the same.

I did end up finishing the book, and it reads well as an academic work. Increased its rating from a two to a three star due to the author bringing in other examples not mentioned in the title.

[Peter Tupper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read. The story of three men and their creations of new kinds of male heroes for the industrial age. I say creations because Sandow, the prototypical bodybuilder, and Houdini, the master escape artist, both adopted new names and created characters through their performances in the mass media that were akin to Burroughs' creation of Tarzan.

You can also see Houdini and Sandow's influence on pulp heroes and superheroes (E.g. Doc Savage, the Shadow, Batman, etc.)

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

very accessible for an academic text (when writing about popular culture, imo you should write for the people who consume that culture) and genuinely enjoyable to read. limited in scope, obviously, to the white male body, but i appreciate the book's up-front acknowledgment of its own scope. it doesn't like, claim to be an All Encompassing text about The Male Body or The White Person or The Turn of the Century. it is what it is, and i really enjoyed it for that.

[em sky-walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really interesting. It had a strong thesis, read almost like a novel, and took an interesting look at white manhood and masculinity in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. I would recommend this for anyone interested in gender or racial studies. The Tarzan section especially interested me, as it really took race into account.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't finished it yet, but it's fantastic. Really fascinating stuff. It talks about Sandow, the first body-builder, Houdini (and his escapes) and the author of Tarzan. Really quick read. After a couple of hours, I'm already half-way through.

[Angelina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually get around to reading history, unfortunately, but this book brought together a bunch of interesting ideas about modernity, the body, masculinity and whiteness at the turn of the century in a really readable way.

[Simon J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful chapters on three major figures of American popular culture. Kasson, an experienced American Studies author, brings them together well with the theme of the body as a new sign of modernity.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. The Tarzan section was a bit of a stretch, though.

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still waiting to give half-stars....

Anyway, 3.5 overall.

[sedge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, solid history, gracefully presented.