A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair ... There is plenty to inform and intrigue, partly because the study of hair demands an exhilarating disciplinary range: from the art of cuts and colours, the history of scissors, razors and combs and the sociology of barbershops, to the semiotics of hair pulling and lock tugging, the ethnography of “Afros”, and the sexual politics of boyish bobs.

Times Literary Supplement

[I]n carefully argued, insightful case studies that deploy sophisticated analytical tools, this volume's contributors document the complex shifts in hair dressing and grooming which have located hair as central to contemporary individualistic self-fashioning and as a key signifier of sexuality and lifestyle politics. Innovative and persuasive, this collection provides an invaluable history of hair for those who want to truly understand its modern significance and powerful cultural status.

Andrew Stephenson, University of East London, UK