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Rating: 
Summary: hope for men
Review: I found Michael Kimmel's book to be a fabulous portrayal of the roots of American sex roles. He uses 3 categories of manhood to describe American men: The Heroic Artisan, Genteel Patriarch and the Self-Made Man. What is very interesting is that he explains, with excessive evidence, how business interests have effectively devalued the latter 2 models, leaving the Self-Made Man as the only thing for American men to strive for. Even more interesting, is the way he documents what this ideal does to the marginalized; minorities, women, immigrants, and working class men. Fortunately, he disagrees with Robert Bly about the need for men to run off into the woods and bond-men have been doing that for years. Instead, he calls on men to embrace feminist philosophy as they (feminists) are not man-haters, but those who really love men, because they "love us enough to believe that we can change." All in all, this is a great book for all men and women who are uncomfortable with gender roles in today's society and who want to learn where they came from. This book truly provides real hope for men.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, but out of bounds
Review: Kimmel has done an amazing amount of research in putting together this historical work. The history of men is amusing as much as it is interesting. Unfortunately, Kimmel's talents stop at the descriptive. As soon as he begins interpreting (the prescriptive), his obvious feminist and revisionist slant contaminates the work. By the end of the book, he in essence concludes that masculinity is more neurosis than nature. His advice is to develop a new sense of masculinity by promoting minorities, women, and becoming defenders of homosexuality. Not only is this conclusion confusing, but it levels the concept of masculinity into androgeny. Though Kimmel denies this, he offers no alternate possibility. The book offers wonderful facts, but the analysis is nothing but Kimmel's own fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but out of bounds
Review: Kimmel has done an amazing amount of research in putting together this historical work. The history of men is amusing as much as it is interesting. Unfortunately, Kimmel's talents stop at the descriptive. As soon as he begins interpreting (the prescriptive), his obvious feminist and revisionist slant contaminates the work. By the end of the book, he in essence concludes that masculinity is more neurosis than nature. His advice is to develop a new sense of masculinity by promoting minorities, women, and becoming defenders of homosexuality. Not only is this conclusion confusing, but it levels the concept of masculinity into androgeny. Though Kimmel denies this, he offers no alternate possibility. The book offers wonderful facts, but the analysis is nothing but Kimmel's own fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A COMPLETE SUCCESS
Review: This is a prodigiously researched and exceptionally well-written history of manhood in America -- something every man should read, and something every man COULD read, given the author's engaging, accessible writing style. I'm enormously impressed by the wealth of information contained in it and the author's wide-ranging understanding of American history, culture and popular culture. When you read this, one realizes the historical precedent, for one thing, of electing presidents of limited capacity. This is a seriously good book.
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