Universal Hunks: A Pictorial History of Muscular Men around the World, 1895-1975

There have been hot guys since the dawn of time! This is a small sampling of them, and there are a few photos that were taken right after cameras were first developed. The old black and white photos of hot guys are really fun to look at, and with all the gay/nude photography that happens nowadays, it is refreshing to see these "forbidden" older photos, taken at a time when gay and nudity were not popular.

Great photos and information. I spent hours devouring this book and am happy to add to my library of male hunks and artists that focus on the male figure ! This was clearly a learning experience, thanks to all that made this possible to be printed !

This book was short of diverse photos from the era promised and the descriptions/context lacked any real support other than the author's opinion.

I've read this history book, and love it for its fact based newsreel presentation, that is historical. It is not a guideline for bodybuilding, that is, nutrition, weight training, and natural development. It has a wonderful way of delineating national qualities.

Marvellously varied selection of illustrations. Chapman is to be highly commended for his investigative work locating/uncovering these many hidden treasures. For such a work of superlative quality, the price cannot be beat. We want more!

A nice book, quickly shipped.

i liked it, from the look inside, it seemed more like a textbook but inside, it's more of a picture book, admittedly with old pictures, but most of them very fetching and suggestive enough. I think the insights in terms of how many were plucked from obscurity for the shots and in many cases, fell back where they came, as sometimes, the names are missing but oddly, photographer's is not. I liked the book, for its forgotten innocence, for its suggestive charm and mostly, for its theme that beauty can be found anywhere.

Great book. Informative and well written,

I really enjoyed this book. I don't know how pretentious it is: is it academic? Is it more 'academic' than it needs to be? Is it pseudo-academic? Is it one man's boundless enthusiasm? Whichever, I thoroughly enjoyed this. We are taken around the world seeing physique photos from decades ago to relatively recent times.I am not such an aficionado of physique photos that I buy such books and magazines very often - so, for me, the photos were all new, the worldwide aspect was interesting and the book was hugely enjoyable. There are some quite natural poses, and some heavily stylized poses, and we can see shifting socio-cultural attitudes. I do wonder, though: How did they get the fig-leaf to stay on in less permissive times?One could always be critical and say it has a Euro-centric / America-centric emphasis and there aren't enough pictures from Africa or India, or wherever, but the overall variety of countries visited and photos shown does offer a global perspective on physique pictures.If looked at with a 'it's-all-good-fun' eye, the book is great. If one opens it wanting to be harshly critical of an exhaustive in-depth tome on the male physique, of course, no doubt, one will be able to find fault on every page and in every paragraph - but such an approach is not really what this book is all about.I heartily recommend this book, and hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

some interesting old pictures and quite a few words to accompany. appreciate the efforts the author had made to dig out the stories behind those masculine body shots

Es un libro con muchas imágenes y organizado temáticamente respecto a la cultura física masculina en distintas áreas culturales en el marco temporal del siglo XIX y XX.