Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found (Paperback)

from Monkeypats

What I thought was going to be entertaining stories of beheadings and found heads, was not. After an interesting story about Oliver Cromwell's head, the book moved into a look at racism and the philosophical and moral issues of what is a person, where does that person actually reside, why is it e...

from Rudolf

Great book. Original and well written. Also very learned, but accessible. Each chapter has its own theme and disciplinary approach, ranging from art history to medical history and postcolonialism. You can read them separately but I would not recommend doing that. Taken together they offer you an ...

from MiaCulpa

Severed started like all books should; with an entertaining, potted history of Oliver Cromwell's skull, post-decapitation. This gave me (false) hope that the book would continue in this vein. Instead, we got plenty of rumination about the idea of severed heads (and other parts) that veered into P...

from le.vert.galant

This is an engaging study of the place of disembodied heads in Western culture. The severed head has myriad manifestations: anthropological speciman, war trophy, medical subject, sainted relic. In all cases, there is something disquieting about it, something that calls into question where our sel...