Rating: 
Summary: Great read on something more interesting than a novel.
Review: I really liked this book. It was very informative and liked it so much I did a research paper on it. I skimmed the other books on the subject but I read and finished this one. I gave her four stars because there are a few points where she doesn't back it up really well like cultural differences. For example, how about those African people that do horrendous things to their lips in order to deform them. There could've been a little more information on that kind of subject. But overall it was a really good book. I was actually proud of myself because I finished something that wasn't fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful supplemental material for Intro. Psych. class
Review: While quite interesting and useful in itself, an early 1970's book "Body Hot Spots" by Russell Dale Guthrie expands the biology of beauty by addressing threat signals, odors, hair, etc.Apparently his PhD dissertation, he seems to have gotten an early march on the subject--yet is not cited in Etcoff or others whom I have read. Out of print--it takes $27.00 to get from Amazon, it replaces a lent (never returned) item from the corner of my bookshelf. For serious readers on the subject--not for amusement... Carlton W. Dukes, PhD
Rating: 
Summary: Pseudo-scientific claptrap!
Review: Etcoff does not understand the constructionist position and paints a bad caricature of it. The point is not that women follow the whims of Revlon but that the very desires we experience are socially constructed. Anyone can knock down a strawman or strawwoman. Read Anne Fausto-Sterling's Myths of Gender.
Rating: 
Summary: If this is our culture...
Review: Excellent (and obvious) points are made by this book, but you have to stop and think that if this is how our culture has shaped itself - using attraction and appearance to develop its hierarchy - then maybe that's why our society is such a mess because we're consistently and persistently choosing beauty over brains. Through this selectivity, we could dumb-down our culture even further, if that's possible!
Rating:
Summary: No more crying "wolf" (as in Naomi Wolf, "The Beauty Myth")
Review: What a remarkably well written and long overdue book! Etcoff's simple and devastating remedy to Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth hysteria is a readable and thoughtful volume. For razing arch-feminists' shibboleths, Etcoff will no doubt be rewarded with mountains of opprobrium -but only from those whose emotional and political investments are in avoiding the intriguing truths Etcoff arrays for the reader. Cognitive scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, neurobiologists, behavioral ecologists, and those gender feminists brave enough to read the book with an open mind (inter alia) will benefit tremendously from Etcoff's sweeping summation of the science and biology of pulchritude. One needn't fear the nonsensical "biology=destiny" tripe that has pervaded this discussion in the past, nor can critics reasonably (mis)attribute such argument to Etcoff (and if they do, they've not read the book, make no mistake about it!). Be prepared for the next time someone glibly remarks that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder": READ THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: Readable but not scientific
Review: This is easy to read but only gives one side of the nature/nurture controversy. It comes down hard on the nature side and limits itself to the evolutionary hypothesis. There are other theories about physical attractiveness. It fails to distinguish between what is said to be attractive and what causes sexual rousal. It offers no solution to the problem of "lookism" or "appearancism." After reading Grealy's "Autobiography of a Face" one feels that we should at least be discussing solutions. To be fair, the scientific studies are surprisingly few and surprisingly dull. Read this book and also read Grealy and Wolf ( "The Beauty Trap")
Rating:
Summary: Great mix of science and literature
Review: Most humanities types don't know when to stop quoting literature, though the references become increasingly irrelevant and obscure. Most scientists don't know when to stop citing colleagues, though they themselves might not have even read the journal papers in question. Professor Etcoff deftly sidesteps these obvious pitfalls to come up with an elegantly written book. It is formal and backed up by science when it needs to be. When it can't be, it is illumined by literature.
Rating: 
Summary: simplistic, boring and shallow
Review: I like the way she quotes desomnd's aquatic ape theory, in the same paragraph as "developing excrine sweat glands for savannah cooling" hah! She is just glossing over the trendiest aspects of cultural anthroplogy, in this book. These best sellers must be targeted at the 85% pseudo-intellectual dempgraphic. Eileen morgan's stuff is a far better read whether or not you take it seriously.
Rating:
Summary: Another example of 'social darwinism'....
Review: ...which is as simplistic as it is morally suspect. The desire to explain all human interaction in terms of biological survival is tiresome, to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: Pseudo-Scientific Claptrap
Review: This time, you can tell a book by its cover. A slim female torso in a corset? Who believes this is a universal beauty ideal? Like back in the caves being slender, hour-glass-figured (and white!) was the way to go. Save your money and your common sense -- read Natalie Angier's Woman instead.
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