''Provocative and imaginative, Gilman''s essays offer a unique glimpse into the mechanism of cultural identity.'' - Anna Dogole, The Jewish Eye

''An extraordinarily learned, endlessly fascinating book that deals with a hot contemporary subject.'' - Elaine Showalter, Princeton University, USA

''[A] fascinating work...Gilman has an eye for detail, yet remains aware of the wider perspective. He also raises important questions...In [this] rich, elegant and beautiful [book] he shows that the history of aesthetic surgery is too important to be left to the surgeons.'' - Jonathan Cole, Times Literary Supplement

''[Gilman] tells a strange, macabre, and often richly comic story of shifting desires. His book shows a dazzling European erudition...There is now less furtiveness attached to aethetic surgery. But the question remains - and Gilman asks it cleverly, humanely, and persistently - whether new appearances just gloss over old problems and often create new ones.'' - New York Review of Books

''The effervescent Sarder L. Gilman''s latest volume, is a characteristically lively series of essays which examines the concept of Jewish identity from fresh and stimulating perspectives...and casts a cultural microscope over Jewish history on a wide frontier.'' - The Jewish Chronicle