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Podcast: New Books in Western European Studies
Episode: Matthew McCormack, "Shoes and the Georgian Man" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Description: Shoes are everyday objects but they are loaded with meaning. Shoes and the Georgian Man (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Matthew McCormack reveals how shoes played a powerful role in the wider story of shifts in gender relations in 18th-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship of shoes with the body and its movements, and therefore how what we wear on our feet relates closely to social, occupational and gender roles. It also uses footwear to explore topics such as politics, war, dance and disability.Thinking about shoes as material objects, Dr. McCormack studied historic shoes fi...