Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair

(Paperback)

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Description

When its not attached to your head, your very own hair takes on a disconcerting quality. Suddenly, it is strange. And yet hair finds its way into all manner of unexpected places, far from our heads, including cosmetics, clothes, ropes, personal and public collections, and even food. Whether treated as waste or as gift, relic, sacred offering or commodity in a billion-dollar industry for wigs and hair extensions, hair has many stories to tell. Collected from Hindu temples and Buddhist nunneries and salvaged by the strand from waste heaps and the combs of long-haired women, hair flows into the industry from many sources. Entering this strange world, Emma Tarlo travels the globe, tracking its movement across India, Myanmar, China, Africa, the United States, Britain and Europe, where she meets people whose livelihoods depend on hair.Viewed from inside Chinese wig factories, Hindu temples and the villages of Myanmar, or from Afro hair fairs, Jewish wig parlours, fashion salons and hair loss clinics in Britain and the United States, hair is oddly revealing of the lives of all it touches. From fashion and beauty to religion, politics and cultural identity, Emma Tarlo explores just how much our locks and curls tell us about who we are. Full of surprising revelations and penetrating insights, Entanglement will change the way you see hair for ever.

Reviews

Tarlo is excellent at elucidating the vanity, money, pain and revulsion that unattached hair can represent. Think you know hair Youll never see it in the same way again.

* Independent *

If youre curious about your roots, youll enjoy exploring UK anthropology professor Emma Tarlos Entanglement a brilliant, comprehensive Baedeker to the billion dollar global hair trade.

* Elle *

By turns surprising, unsettling and disturbing but never anything less than absorbingweaving in history, politics and science in an interlocking, mesmerising narrative that seems wholly appropriate to the subject.

* Literary Review *

Brilliant...Entanglementtracks its subject doggedly through an almost infinite number of twists and turns.

* Times Literary Supplement *

Entanglement is dense with colourful characters and startling, unexpected information, which makes it both exhausting and delightful. Tarlo brings a lovely open-mindedness and a deadpan sense of humour to her writing.

* New York Times Book Review *

Tarlo uses an ethnographers eye to analyse the religious, social, cultural and commercial forces that drive the industry. Yet her book reads like a travelogue as we follow her through the temple towns of India, the hair factories of China, the sorting sheds of Myanmar and the salons of Europe and Britain By employing an anecdotal yet vigorously researched approach, Tarlo succeeds in untangling a knotty topic while keeping the reader engaged through 400-plus pages. The result is a fascinating and authoritative work.

* John Zubrzycki, The Australian *

Interesting and, at times strange.

* Times *

'Clever, idiosyncraticlivelyfull of amusing, fancy that information and arresting observationswhat a rich subject Tarlo has chosen for her book.

* New Statesman *

Wonderfulits not often a book gives you new eyes for your everyday world.

* The Oldie *

I had no idea that a non-fiction book about hair could be quite so fascinating.

* The Pool *

The questions she examines and the secret lives of hair that she exposes are fascinating An engrossing investigation.

* Library Journal, starred review *

This is a book about the only crop we routinely harvest from our own bodies hair. From that disconnection come amazing tales: histories of paupers and pedlars in Europe, vast global trades in wigs, poignant stories of chemotherapy and memorialisation...Tarlo has done an extraordinary job of reattaching hair to humanity.

-- Daniel Miller, professor of anthropology, University College London, and author of Stuff and The Comfort of Things

I will never think about hair the same way after reading Emma Tarlos brilliant, fascinating book!

-- Valerie Steele, author of The Corset: A Cultural History, and director and chief curator, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

A timelybook that takes a fascinating journey throughthe business practices and politics of hair, and the questionablerelationship between hair dealers, middle-men and the consumer.

-- Professor Caroline Cox, author of How to be Adored

Written in conversational prose with historical images,little-known facts, and an absorbing narrative woven throughout, this is a lively read that explores the fashion, industry, and history of hair, while untangling our own often-complicated relationship with this natural accessory. In an informative and often whimsical voice, Tarlo personalizes her research with vignettes about her own fascination with hair. From eccentric wig makers in China to hair hunters in India and customers in Europe, Tarlo takes us on an eye-opening journey that will make us wonder if our own hair doesnt have a secret life of its own.

* Booklist *

In Entanglement Tarlo opens up a whole secret world of human hair, its diverse social meanings across cultures and the robust trade of it that has carried on for centuries across the world. She weaves in historical details that address issues of religion, symbolism, fashion and economy, and presents ethnographic encounters with a range of characters from Dakkar to Wenzhou, Chennai to New York millionaire wig dealers, impoverished villagers sorting comb waste, temple officials and fashionable women who all perform an important role in this ubiquitous but unseen trade. This book is for everybody who is curious about how a single object can become a sought after commodity around the globe. Entanglement is beautifully written and while based on rigorous academic research it eschews jargon and makes the fascinating story of hair the centrepiece of the narrative. A most rewarding and edifying read.

-- Mukulika Banerjee, anthropologist, London School of Economics and Political Science

Author Bio

Emma Tarlo is a professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She regularly gives public lectures worldwide and contributes to BBC Radio programmes and news articles. Her previous books include Clothing Matters, winner of the 1998 Coomaraswamy Prize, and Visibly Muslim. She lives in Camden, London.