One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair

by Allan Peterkin

A witty, comprehensive history of facial hair, documenting its continuous rise and fall as a trend. With style recipes, information on care and upkeep, and hundreds of pictures of famous bearded men (and women!), One Thousand Beards provides an insightful, light-hearted, and well-groomed look at facial hair.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cultural

227 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 2001

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't generally review books on Goodreads in a serious way because most of the books I read are okay. Plenty of others have said what I think very well. Some of the book I read are great and many people have some even better things to say about those.

Some books are terrible.

One Thousand Beards starts off strong. Beards have an interesting history; they've been taxed, forbidden, liberated, grown and shorn. Across the span of history, almost all styles of beards have represented almost everything. The first third of the book conveys well. It's well-articulated and seems to be going somewhere.

It goes to gay culture. And gay sex. And blithe Freudian remarks about repressed cultures, repressed people and repressed femininity. I can't tell why this is relevant or necessary. It doesn't seem accurate that beards represent self-hatred/self-love. I certainly remained unconvinced of anything that Peterkin wrote after chapter 4.

Avoid.

[Mark Glover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems like a lot of people have been jumping on the beard band wagon of late(God you know a movements reached terminal velocity when footballers start adopting it!). Anyhoo I don't think anyone should be able to grow a beard without first reading this book which offers a fascinating insight into all things beardy(with some moustache work thrown in their for good measure)including a complete and more absorbing than you might initially assume history of beards and their social context. The book is well written, witty and also offers a handy guide to you choice of facial hair and what it might say about you. All in all I can't recommend it highly enough(said whilst scratching beard in a sage manner). Maybe one day there will be a written test for beard growing and if so then I can't think of a finer volume to use as a study guide.

[Eric Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was hopeful, and then I was unimpressed. What I thought would be an interesting "cultural history" of beards was actually a catalog similar to my elementary American history textbooks, though this book is certainly NOT for children.

I had hoped for more than a cursory survey of religious reasons for beards. The chapter on "The Unconscious Beard" was, as another reviewer pointed out, decidedly one-sided in favor of psychotherapy. Sometimes, people grow beards just to grow beards.

There wasn't enough new information in the book to warrant the time I gave it.

[Jayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like historical books and even though I don't personally have facial hair, I do have a fascination with the history of beauty and grooming. While I did take away a few fun tidbits like the first tweezers being clam shells, I found this book difficult to follow because there were blurbs of random fact bubbles along the margins which reminded me of my old biology textbooks where I felt the urge to read EVERYTHING on the page for fear the information might come in handy later. I also found that ideas would jump around or at times would just be a list of celebrities or historical figures who had sideburns, moustaches or beards of a certain length. Lists aren't that interesting and I really had to force myself to finish this book despite starting it over a month ago.

[Danon Hennessey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun read!

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both amusing and educational. Everything you every wanted to know about facial hair. I don't remember what other book this was mentioned in.

[WORN Fashion Journal]

Allan Peterkin’s One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair filled my arsenal of oddball facts and trivia to bursting. I now know that there exists an actual organization called the Beard Liberation Front (an interest group that campaigns against beard discrimination), that somewhere in this world lives an enigmatic contraption called a moustache bra, and that Peter the Great of Russia made it impossible for men to wear beards unless they paid 100 rubles per year for a beard license. Truly. A beard license.

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One Thousand Beards was born out of what Peterkin describes as “one of those perverse moments of inspiration.” Devoted to the who, what, when, where, and why of facial hair, it contains chapters that progress from the early history of the beard to the beard in the 20th century, with sections on everything from shaving to psychoanalysis in between. It offers something for every reader, and although the book aims to be part cultural history and part psychological investigation, it is neither at the expense of fun or entertainment.

In his introduction, Peterkin claims that while writing his book he had hoped to uncover, “the unconscious reasons we wear beards” and the statements we make with the facial hair we choose (women included – Peterkin writes an entire chapter on the feminine beard that, for me, was one of the highlights of the book). The book does address these and other tough questions about why we wear facial hair, but provides few answers. Instead, One Thousand Beards is saturated with facts, statistics and stories, giving readers the information and freedom to draw their own conclusions. While I wish there had been more space devoted to the author’s own ideas and opinions, the volume of information provided and the pace at which it’s presented tells me that any answer to these questions would require an entirely different kind of book.

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One Thousand Beards gives readers the understanding that there is much, much more behind facial hair than the mere biological ability to grow it. Over time, beards have been forbidden, required, taxed, and forcibly removed, and between every man (or woman) and his (or her) facial hair lies an emotional attachment, personal belief, fashion statement, and worldview. It not only opened my mind to the stories behind facial hair, but to the potential history behind other everyday objects and items of personal style.

Quirky, did-you-know kinds of anecdotes have always filled my nerdy heart with glee. Thanks to One Thousand Beards, I can now joyfully tell people that most men will spend a total of 5 months of their lives shaving, and that hundreds of thousands of dollars of beer is wasted every year trapped in beards. And really, this is the kind of information that can only make life happier, funnier and a little bit more full. It not only freshly stocked my cache of trivia, but it opened my mind to the wealth of stories I can find in all of the places I would never have thought to look.

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A few of my favourite things:

• Separate from the main text, each page has side columns devoted to facial hair facts, quotations, images and illustrations that don’t quite fit anywhere else.

• The final chapter not only contains detailed instructions on how to plan, grow, wash, dye and wax your facial hair but also contains an illustrated list of how-to’s with instructions on how to shave your facial hair into twenty distinct styles.

• The bibliography is nine pages long. Though the book itself is more of an overview than an in-depth look at facial hair, it provides tons of resources for readers interested in digging further.

(reviewed by Hailey Siracky)

[David Cain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was wildly uneven. Some chapters covered a quite interesting historical or cultural discussion of one aspect or another of facial hair. Chapters 1-5 were particularly well done - "The Antique Beard: A History of the Beard", "Beards of Fame and Infamy", "The Anti-Beard: A History of Shaving", "The Medical Beard", and "The Religious Beard". Others were quite irrelevant to the topic and even ridiculous. The chapter on "The Feminine Beard" includes a discussion of pornographic web sites. The chapter on "The Unconscious Beard" strays way out into bizarre territory, leaving me perplexed until I read the author bio on the back cover and realized that Peterkin is a psychiatrist. That chapter includes this tidbit: "You know the type of goatee which circles the mouth and makes it look like a vagina? My take is that men with unclear orientation, as well as a lot of gay men, favour this style as an unconscious badge of femininity and submissiveness. Some secretly harbor the wish to be dominated or facially raped." 'WTF?!?', as they say. The writing tends toward the dry and boring style characteristic of mediocre history writing, so unless you're a big fan of bearding culture (as I certainly am), there are probably more entertaining books to choose in place of this one.

[jillbertini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book to have at a party where I invited people to wear mustaches. I had low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised. Great pop culture take on the history of facial hair. Particularly appreciated the Female Beard and the Gay Beard chapters.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bet this book would be good as a bathroom reader. I enjoyed it in snippets, but sometimes it read too much like a beard textbook. It looks like I will not be majoring in beards after all. It does have some great quotes and historical beard context though.

[Chris Michel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lots of interesting tidbits and history about beards. To bad it was written in a way that I could only read a chapter at a time. Can't figure out why it was so hard for me to keep focused on it. Only took me 19 months to finish.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew the fearsome power of the Beard? But isn't it real proof that vanity is the downfall of us all?

http://lebrbook.blogspot.ca/2015/01/o...

http://nonfictionbookclubmississauga....

[Evie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I found the content a little redundant. Many of the chapters overlapped with the same information. Still, interesting. Probably more so if you can grow facial hair.

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Excellent resource for all things beardy.

[Philski · Rating 3 out of 5]

good although repetitive at times, some sentences lifted verbatim between chapters, and a number of typos. Covered some interesting niches in beard topics.

[Patrick Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was every bit as interesting as I'd hoped it would be, and the perfect length; this is about as long as you'd want to read about beards, I think.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It seems clear that if you had a man by the balls and the beard, you had his soul."

Somewhat enjoyable read, but the layout/way it was written got old...fast.