Our intimate connection with the world, skin protects us while advertising our health, our identity, and our individuality. This title celebrates the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations.
"When you meet people, whether they're fully clothed on the street or scantily clad on the beach, the first part of their body that you see, smell, and perhaps touch is the skin. Skin is our largest and most visible organ, our personal poster board for decoration and advertisement. Nina Jablonski gives us the best and most fascinating account of everything that you might want to know about the packaging of our anatomy."-Jared Diamond, author of Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel
"This fascinating book traces the long evolutionary history of our integument, revealing a whole host of essential skin functions that most of us have probably never even thought of."-Ian Tattersall, author of The Fossil Trail
"An intriguing study of our body's most visible organ. I wish I'd written it myself."-Spencer Wells, author of The Journey of Man
"A fascinating and comprehensive account of the biological and cultural aspects of human skin."-John Relethford, SUNY at Oneonta
"Anthropologist Jablonski delves into the natural history of skin in animals and people and explains its structure and function, its evolution as a nearly hairless body covering in people, and the utility of its pigment melanin. She also examines the role of skin in activities as varied as finding food and bonding socially. Finally, she looks at the prospects for artificial skin."
