About the Author

Jean Stengers is Professor of History at the University of Brussels.

The late Anne Van Neck was a Master of Research at the University's Institute of History.

Kathryn Hoffmann, University of Hawaii, is the author of Society of Pleasures.

Reviews

"...rigorous, well-turned and enlightening study." --Publishers Weekly "...a good read." --Library Journal "...required reading..." --Playboy "...genius..." --Flaunt Magazine "Kathryn Hoffmann's lively translation of Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck's Masturbation: The History of a Great Terror is both a great read and a cautionary tale about the power of ideas. . . . Loaded with quotations from Freud, Rousseau, and many lesser lights on the intellectual landscape, the book traces how speculation becomes 'fact, ' and fact becomes 'nature'--and also how quickly that nature could change." --Merry Wiesner-Hanks