A while back, I received a free book from Jared Trueheart titled “Manhood in Modern America”. Naturally, being the money-grubbing SOB I am, I rejoiced at the thought of getting free stuff for being a Z-List celebrity, and doubly so because this book was, in fact, related to not only anthropology, but manthropology. And having read it, I’m glad I did so, because Mr. Trueheart synthesizes the meager library of renegade anthropology (in particular Jack Donovan’s The Way of Men) into an intellectual analysis of, well, the state of manhood in modern America, and overcomes some clunky prose and editing to do so.
Trueheart points out that American men are in something of a state of arrested development, and thus seeks to point out what manhood is and how it can possibly be restored. Indeed, many of the problems he points out are things that I and many others have pointed out—the lack of male peer bonding groups, the omnipresence of feminism and soy, the easiness of modern life, the destruction of the American family (meaning a lack of male role models for boys) and, lastly but certainly not least, the fact that almost all writing about manhood today is written by feminists (both male and female) with an axe to grind. These are certainly all points I have made in the past
From there he goes into seeking to explain what the nature of manhood is: Anthropologists typically use one of four definitions of manhood. The first is “anything men think or do”, the second is “anything men think or do to become MEN”, the third is that some men are “more men” than others, and the fourth is that manhood is anything that femininity is not.
Of these he considers only the second one to be really good (the third implies that men can’t change their manliness, the fourth implies that masculinity is a mere reaction to femininity, and the first is just so broad it’s meaningless). The point he is clearly trying to make is that manhood HAS to be uncertain to mean anything, you need a sort of rite of passage that you can possibly fail; he is saying that manhood is exclusive and can only exist if it is exclusive.
He also refers to the “three Ps” of manhood that David Gilmore defined: protect, procreate, provide, and how these things are considered hallmarks of manhood in basically every culture on the planet. This is why men have historically gravitated towards quote-unquote “masculine nurturing” fields such as construction and manufacturing—and not coincidentally these are industries that are hit the hardest by economic downturns.
Certainly, I have no objections to any of these; the problems I have with the book are almost all entirely technical. Trueheart fairly frequently uses typos, and he also tends to go off on segues such as on page 82 where he talks about the decline of physical strength in modern man, before going into a paragraphs long explanation of what plyometrics are.
Such problems, admittedly, make the book a bit of a slog to go through, despite the generally interesting subject matter contained within and expertly cited.
Thus it is with tepid recommendation that I tell you to read this book: Read it, just make sure to prepare yourself for a bit of a grind to get to the gems within.
You can get the book here