CANNIBAL: The History of the People-Eaters.

UK,slim 8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,green+black photographic dw/dj with green+white letters; with negligible shelf- wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean,contents bright,tight and pristine.Sharp-cornered,bright,clean,publisher's original,plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped silver gilt letters to spine/ backstrip,and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,slim 8vo HB+ dw/dj,1st edn,7-208pp [paginated] includes acknowledgements,12 chapters,8pp contemporary b/w+colour photographs/illustrations, between pp112/13,a bibliography and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,and contents list/table. Cannibalism holds a morbid fascination for the Western world. From Victorian tales of the 'missionary in the pot' to the iconic status of modern cinema's cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter,people who eat other people have always shocked and appalled society.But is this ancient abhorrent taboo as strange and unfamiliar to us as we suppose? 'Cannibal' is an unsettling scrutiny of this behaviour through history and throughout the world today which finds that,far from being an extraordinary and deviant aberration,the eating of people by people is a common human theme that crosses all ages and cultures.Since the 5thC BC when Herodotus first reported of the 'Androphagi' - literally 'the eaters of men' - cannibalism has had many permutations.Sometimes people inspired by affection have been known to consume their dead relatives,sometimes,driven by the need to survive,the starving have fed on the dead.Tribes have terrorized their neighbours with powerful displays of cannibalism and women claim to have kept their youth through the consumption of unborn children. 'Cannibal' places these chilling tales alongside no less strange happenings from our own culture - the eating of afterbirth,most controversially by a celebrity chef on UK television; the Christian church's ritualised eating of the body of Christ; and the real life Hannibal Lecters of our time from Jeffrey Dahmer to Issei Sagawa, a Japanese celebrity and convicted cannibal,now a free man and a regular contributor of erotic cannibalistic stories to adult magazines.This is a challenging and comprehensive examination of the evidence and the explanations for the existence of cannibalism in our society ranging in breadth from Russia to Fiji, from homo erectus to modern man,and from archaeological and forensic evidence to the latest theories of psychologists and behavioural scientists.Tied to the ground-breaking Channel 4 series of the same name,produced by 3BM Television.
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