Everything you need to know about ear, face, and body piercings—from how to find a skilled professional piercer to best practices for safe healing and optimal results. “As a piercer, nurse, and educator, I can say without a doubt that this is the most complete book ever written for all people in our industry.”—David A. Vidra, founder and president of Health Educators, Inc. Piercing expert Elayne Angel has performed over 50,000 piercings since the 1980s and has pioneered many placements, including tongue piercing and the triangle, lorum, and other genital piercings. Her authoritative and groundbreaking guidebook has been the definitive resource on body piercing since its publication in 2009. Many people are unaware of the elevated risks of getting pierced at a mall kiosk, by an untrained tattoo artist, or by a novice piercer; a skilled professional is necessary for safety and optimal results, whether piercing the ear, nose, or elsewhere. This revised and expanded edition is the only comprehensive reference book available to help you navigate the entire piercing process. It contains new illustrations, diagrams, and photos, along with fully updated information, including: • The best piercings and placements for various body parts and body types • Terminology, techniques, and tools of the trade • Vital sterility, sanitation, and hygiene information • Jewelry designs, sizes, materials, and quality • Piercing aftercare and troubleshooting advice for successful healing • How to become a piercer, piercing throughout history and in modern culture, and the future of body piercing The Piercing Bible, Revised and Expanded, includes essential medical and technical updates, as well as refreshed illustrations and jewelry photography, to reflect today's standards and best practices for safe, professional piercing.

Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century. There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor — geography, climate, or culture perhaps — made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of "Short-Term Accident" theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present, and future — in a way no one has ever done before.

An ethnography of the tattoo community, tracing the practice's transformation from a mostly male, working-class phenomenon to one adapted and propagated by a more middle-class movement in the period from the 1970s to the present.

This book explores physical and behavioral characteristics that can be considered universal among all cultures, all people. It presents cases demonstrating universals, looks at the history of the study of universals, and presents an interesting study of a hypothetical tribe, The Universal People.

Fashion History: A Global View proposes a new perspective on fashion history. Arguing that fashion has occurred in cultures beyond the West throughout history, this groundbreaking book explores the geographic places and historical spaces that have been largely neglected by contemporary fashion studies, bringing them together for the first time. Reversing the dominant narrative that privileges Western Europe in the history of dress, Welters and Lillethun adopt a cross-cultural approach to explore a vast array of cultures around the globe. They explore key issues affecting fashion systems, ranging from innovation, production and consumption to identity formation and the effects of colonization. Case studies include the cross-cultural trade of silk textiles in Central Asia, the indigenous dress of the Americas and of Hawai'i, the cosmetics of the Tang Dynasty in China, and stylistic innovation in sub-Saharan Africa. Examining the new lessons that can be deciphered from archaeological findings and theoretical advancements, the book shows that fashion history should be understood as a global phenomenon, originating well before and beyond the fourteenth century European court, which is continually, and erroneously, cited as fashion's birthplace. Providing a fresh framework for fashion history scholarship, Fashion History: A Global View will inspire inclusive dress narratives for students and scholars of fashion, anthropology, and cultural studies.

Through an interview-based study, Victoria Pitts has researched the subcultural milieu of contemporary body modification, focusing on the ways sexuality, gender and ethnicity are being reconfigured through new body technologies - not only tattooing, but piercing, cyberpunk and such 'neotribal' practices as scarification. She interprets the stories of sixteen body modifiers (as well as some subcultural magazines and films) using the tools of feminist and queer theory. Pitts not only covers a hot topic but also situates it in a theoretical context.

If you've ever seen Fakir Musafar's photographs in Modern Primitives, Body Play magazine or on TV, you must get a copy of this coffee table art book. After 50 years of photographing his own body play and the play of others, here is a huge, 196-page collection of the very best of his work. A must-have for all serious body modifiers, tattoo and piercing enthusiasts.