"Engaging and readable... Severed is a fascinating curio of a history" —The Times
"[Larson] is alive to the delicacy of the language needed, all the more appropriately given that much of what she describes is fascinatingly gruesome." —Evening Standard
"An eloquent and provocative exploration of what the detached head means, one that reaches beyond today's desert atrocities into the core of human culture" —New Statesman
"Squeamish readers might want to close this book after its initial pages yet find themselves compelled to keep reading...Objects and the stories they tell permeate Larson's work, and she has a talent for exploring the topic...Although the timeframe covered mainly predates jihadist beheadings, Severed has horribly timely insight to shed." —Observer
Our history is littered with heads. Over the centuries, they have decorated our churches, festooned our city walls and filled our museums; they have been props for artists and specimens for laboratory scientists, trophies for soldiers and items of barter. Today, as videos of decapitations circulate online and cryonicists promise that our heads may one day live on without our bodies, the severed head is as contentious and compelling as ever. From shrunken heads to trophies of war; from memento mori to Damien Hirst's With Dead Head; from grave-robbing phrenologists to enterprising scientists, Larson explores the bizarre, often gruesome and confounding history of the severed head. Its story is our story.
