In the preface to Stand Up Straight!, the author half-apologises for the ¡°anecdotal rather than exhaustive¡± nature of his 10 chapters. Far from a problem, however, this anecdotal approach is inseparable from Sander Gilman¡¯s ambitious aim: proving the significance of posture in Western history. As he suggests, the human ability to stand results from ¡°sets of muscles and ligaments and bodily systems¡± ¨C but our determination to stand up straight reveals much about ¡°what we believe and what the implications of such beliefs are¡±. Gilman skilfully traces our understanding of posture from the earliest Homo through classical civilisation and on to post-war art movements and contemporary working practices.

Driving the chapters forward, however, is not chronology but rather the multiple discourses ensuring that the body politic stand upright. Gilman¡¯s multidisciplinary approach draws on theology, philosophy, the military, medicine and art. Greek philosophers debate the precise location of humanity within physiognomy (for Aristotle, bipedalism; Anaxagoras favours hands) but agree that ¡°being erect moves man towards the gods¡±. Gilman¡¯s reading of Immanuel Kant suggests an origin for the enduring link between stance and morality. For Kant, humanity¡¯s stunted, crooked, twisted form must strive towards physical, social and moral ¡°uprightness¡±: achieve moral soundness and one¡¯s body will follow.

Gilman deftly threads the striking image of the plumb line throughout, using this trope to turn anecdote into data. While Kant pondered moral straightness, ¡°posture books¡± offered practical military advice. Stand Up Straight!¡¯s illustrations are wonderful, particularly those depicting balletic pike-men emulating their weapon¡¯s long lines, a forerunner of parade-ground rigidity. Nineteenth-century discourses on social citizenship adapted the plumb line, as in the case of Kaiser Wilhelm II¡¯s ladies-in-waiting, trained by ¡°body culturist¡± Bess M. Mensendieck (I stood in Mensendieck¡¯s required position for three minutes: ouch!). Plumb-line ideals stiffened the moral body, informing the use of women¡¯s corsets, invalids¡¯ back braces and even rigid swaddling for babies. Children and adults were shaped by social institutions: education and citizenship, respectively. Sigmund Freud¡¯s work on neurosis drew on ¡°uprightness¡±, while no less an authority than Charles Darwin believed that only bipedal man ¨C using his free hands ¨C could express anger. Gilman¡¯s authoritative voice marshals a crowd of examples into a cogent, illuminating analysis.

Cleverly, each chapter amplifies what comes before, until socio-moral ¡°soundness¡± and physical verticality are linked beyond question. Only then do the final three chapters make distressingly clear what such links mean for non-normative bodies. Again and again, a nation¡¯s symbolic ¡°straightness¡± is maintained through dehumanising the ¡°crooked¡±: Native American children forced into corrective shoes; Blood and Soil in Nazi Germany; persecution of disabled bodies; antisemitic feeling legitimised through categories of straight/slouched, patriotic/traitor, useful/parasite; these same categories justifying slavery. As Gilman sharply observes, persecutors (race scientists in his example) love ¡°such seemingly objective classification¡±. His final section, demonstrating posture¡¯s central significance to disability studies, stands out as particularly significant.

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What Gilman demonstrates so successfully is that any history of posture is always a history of perception. The title¡¯s bold imperative is a command barked at those whose posture supposedly imperils the nation, causes moral degeneration or decreases productivity. He has produced a valuable book.

Louisa Yates is director of collections and research at Gladstone¡¯s Library, and a visiting lecturer in English at the University of Chester.

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Stand Up Straight!: A History of Posture
By Sander L. Gilman
Reaktion Books, 424pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9781780239248
Published 7 March 2018