A cultural history of gesture - Jan Bremmer

People are often inclined to view our gestures as something 'natural. Yet a closer look at history tells us that they change from one period to another, and that these changes can provide us with vital insights into social and cultural developments of the past. This important and exciting book, now available in paperback, sets out to explore such changes in the development of gestures – from modes of walking and oratorial gesture in Greece and Rome to the origin of the modern handshake, from the arm akimbo in Renaissance portraiture to early modern table manners, from Spanish tavern sociability to the modern kiss. These discrete accounts place the history of gestures in their wider cultural context and together form a vivid and fascinating picture of life and manners through the centuries.