"The history of footbinding is full of contradictions and unexpected turns. The practice originated in the dance culture of China's medieval court and spread to gentry families, brothels, maids' quarters, and peasant households. Conventional views of footbinding as patriarchal oppression often neglect its complex history and the motivations of the women involved. This revisionist history, elegantly written and meticulously researched, presents a new picture of the practice from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century. Neither condemning nor defending footbinding, Dorothy Ko debunks many myths and misconceptions about its origins, development, and eventual end, exploring in the process the entanglement of male power and female desire during the practice's thousand-year history." "Throughout her narrative, Ko combines methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism - as a way to live as the poets imagined - ended up being an exercise in excess and folly."--BOOK JACKET.

"Philip A. Lilienthal Asian Studies imprint"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. 1. The body exposed 1. Gigantic histories of the nation in the globe : the rhetoric of Tianzu, 1880s-1910s 2. The body inside out : the practice of Fangzu, 1900s-1930s 3. The bound foot as antique : connoisseurship in an age of disavowal, 1930s-1941

Pt. 2. The body concealed 4. From ancient texts to current customs : in search of footbinding's origins 5. The erotics of place : male desires and the imaginary geography of the northwest 6. Cinderella's dreams : the burden and uses of the female body.