Book review: Of Beards and Men - facial hair from hipsters to Hitler and beyond
The four major facial hair movements of the past 4,000 years, and how beards and moustaches have been viewed by societies dissected in this scholarly history
by Christopher Oldstone-Moore
University of Chicago Press
Have you ever wondered why Adolf Hitler had that distinctive toothbrush moustache? Why Martin Luther had a beard and Tarzan didn’t? Or why Jesus Christ has been depicted as both bearded and clean-shaven – sometimes in the same work of art?
Those are just a few of the tonsorial touchstones visited in Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair, by Christopher Oldstone-Moore, which holds a scholarly shaving mirror up to the shifting societal acceptance of beards, from Sumerian king Shulgi in the 21st century BC through the 2013 World Series.
There’s no doubt that facial fuzz has become a part of our pop culture landscape (manscape?), thanks to the metrosexual movement, facial-hair competitions, the moustache-as-fundraising month Movember and glitter-covered hipster beards. The low point came with the 2011 “Bergholz barbers” assaults, in which attackers forcibly shaved a handful of Amish men, and the high point with the 2013 World Series – won not as much by the Boston Red Sox but the team’s awe-inspiring collection of “rally beards”. and won the World Series. But how did we get here? That’s what Oldstone-Moore sets out to answer.