Butts: A Backstory

So much more enjoyable than I expected with plenty of episodes of butt history I was not at all familiar with. Very much enjoyed the episodes from the 19th century on up to the 90s but found the more contemporary discussion less engaging, perhaps because it veered into straightforwardly moralizing territory?

The historical part was great, even if repetitive. When it got to pop culture, it became really boring to me. Unfortunately, this book tries to be too many things at once.

Butts: A Backstory is an engaging, thoughtful microhistory of the phenomenon that is the human butt, placing society's current focus on bringing the rear to the fore in a larger societal context and interrogating its relationship to issues of gender, race (particularly Blackness), and cultural appropriation.

I've seen this book described as “funny”, and I'm not sure I agree; although Radke peppers wit throughout, unless you feel that seeing the phrase “human butt” in print is the height of comedy (I agree, but that's on me, not the author), you should prepare not for a cavalcade of laughs but for a journey to answer sometimes uncomfortable questions with a dose of good humor and a body-positive message.

Thanks to Radke's perspective, I'm glad to have begun 2023 not with another vow to transform myself, but with a healthy dose of self-love and an inquisitive, critical look at the societal pressures that shape the way we view our shapes.