Clear Nude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer 2015 ClearNude: The Lens + the Nude, Issue IV, Summer | Page 60

BOOK REVIEW Curvology: s The Origins & Power of Female Body Shape by David Bainbridge omething remarkable has happened to women, something unique. Of all the creatures in the animal kingdom, human females stand out as having one special, powerful feature: curves. That may be good news for men, but it makes life complicated for women. Why do only human females have curves, how do they affect their lives, and why do they think about them so much? It was these simple questions which set David Bainbridge, a popular science writer and Cambridge anatomist and reproductive biologist, on a evolutionary, biological, psychological and socio-cultural quest to discover how female curviness lies at the centre of our species’ success – what it means to be human, and what it means to be a woman. Curvology follows an arc through human history, from the evidence of our ancestors’ bones picked from the African dust, to the cult of the pre-clubbing selfie. One half of the members of our species live their lives in a body unlike any other in the animal kingdom, and this body exerts remarkable, pervasive effects on their movement, fertility, longevity, thought, mood, and even success. Divided into ten chapters the book is a focused, novel, humane and accessible approach on the female body, rooted in the authors ‘zoological’ approach to this most distinctive aspect of human appearance. 60 Clear Nude | summer 2015