Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History Of Footbinding

Dorothy Ko presents her research in her book about the controversial topic of footbinding. Ko explores the process from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century, touching on the complex layering of male and female desire and power functions. Ko deftly wields methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism – as a way to live as the poets imagined – ended up being an exercise in excess and folly.