From dreams of Prince Charming or dashing military heroes, to the lure of dark strangers and vampire lovers; from rock stars and rebels to soulmates, dependable family types, or simply good companions, female fantasies about men tell us a great deal about the history of women. In Heartthrobs, Carol Dyhouse draws upon literature, cinema, and popular romance to show how the changing cultural and economic position of women has shaped their dreams about men. When girls were supposed to be shrinking violets, passionate females risked being seen as 'unbridled', or dangerously out of control. Change came slowly, and young women remained trapped in a double-bind: you may have needed a husband in order to survive, but you had to avoid looking like a gold-digger. Show attraction too openly and you might be judged 'fast' and undesirable. Education and wage-earning brought independence and a widening of horizons for women. These new economic beings showed a sustained appetite for novel-reading, cinema-going, and the dancehall. They sighed over Rudolph Valentino's screen performances as tango-dancer or Arab tribesman and desert lover. Women may have been ridiculed for these obsessions, but, as consumers, they had new clout. This book reveals changing patterns of desire, and looks at men through the eyes of women.

This book compiles photos and life stories of fifty of the sexiest men and women from history and asks the essential question: Would you really want to date them? Some are artists, some are scientists, and many are political or military leaders, but all have had a lasting impact on human life—and a sizable impact on their admirers as well. Each entry describes the period in which the heartthrob lived and includes essential stats, hilarious sidebars, and, of course, a "crushability" ranking: a measurement of how crush-worthy these people really are, based on their relative levels of heroism (or villainy).