Little Big Men

Alan M. Klein is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University. He is the author of Sugarball: The American Game, The Dominican Dream.

"Alan Klein's splendid ethnography is a vivid description of the bodybuilding cult, but is far more as well. It gives us important lessons about masculinity and men's bodies, about tangles of identity and sexuality, and—above all—about the contradictory character of gender in the contemporary world. Fascinating reading and a notable contribution to knowledge." — Bob Connell, University of California, Santa Cruz"This is an important work that will make a significant contribution to sport sociology. I like its readability, its use of vivid, rich portraits, and its location within a scholarly body of literature on the body. In the best tradition of ethnography, we are provided a 'portrait of the people,' while at the same time adding to our theoretical knowledge about culture and society." — Peter Adler, University of Denver

• Acknowledgments PART ONE: THE WORLD OF THE BODYBUILDER Introduction 1. Breaking and Entering: Presupposition and Faux Pas in the Gym 2. Caste and Class in a Western Gym 3. The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent 4. Muscle Moguls: The Political-Economy of Competitive Bodybuilding 5. Little Big Men of Olympic PART TWO: SUBCULTURE ANALYSIS OF BODYBUILDING 6. Pumping Iron: Crisis and Contradiction in Bodybuilding 7. Sally's Corner: The Women of Olympic 8. The Hustler Complex: Narcissism, Homophobia, Hypermasculinity, and Authoritarianism 9. Comic-Book Masculinity and Cultural Fiction Appendix A Appendix B Notes Index