History of Men's Magazines Vol. 5 Hardcover – November 1, 2005

This is vol. 5 of the series of the History of Men's Magazines at the Newsstand. We are now into the 70's when Men's magazines became free to publish just about anything. The 70's were the era of big breasts. And many of the magazines featured women with large breasts. Some of the issues were even dedicated to breasts only. The book starts with a chapter on the American Newsstand. Now the U.S. had caught up and maybe even past Europe by with their Men's Magazines. There are special chapters on Al Goldstein famous for Screw magazine, Larry Flint of Hustler fame, Peter Wolff, who had a number of magazines such as Cheri, High Society. In addition the countries or regions of the world are Britain, France, Japan, Hong Kong Latin America, Italy and Germany. And the Top 5 American Covergirls from 1968 to 1980 are very interesting. And a bit of a surprise. It finishes with Ads from the various magazines which also shows how much times have changed since the 50's and 60's. This addition has a lot more full nudity than the earlier books. Of course that is in keeping with the changing of the laws and society. Once again the many magazine covers are extremely interesting. Great to see the color covers. Interesting to note that the author mentions the collectability of many of the magazines are how difficult it is to get them. I found the 50's interesting and the 60's were a bit less so but the 70's are great. Partly this could be because I was now alive and remember some of these magazines from the late 70's.

The photo most shown here is not the photo on the cover. Don't let that stop you from buying this book. This volume tracks the explosion of men's magazines in the 70s and the crossing of boundaries in film making and magazine publishing. Movie review magazines, Hustler, cartoons, Playboy's attempt at European sophistication. Softcore to marriage manuals to hardcore. Ruben Sturman, Larry Flynt, John Holmes, Seka and Roberta Pedon.

While the photos in this book are quaint, the info is very short of facts or wit. But then, who buys a book with a cover like this one for the articles? Really now...

The cover photo and the list of magazines that the author has been involved with should provide a good indication of what to expect in this fascinating book, in other words, not beautiful scantily clad female fashion models photographed by skillful photographers as appeared in Playboy and Penthouse (which are notably absent from this compilation), but the world of specialist - read unsophistated, tacky and bizarre - softcore porn as it was in the 1970s. Well, some photos are typical of Playboy and Penthouse, but the majority are ones they would not have considered. Of the 1,000 + illustrations most are of covers but there are plenty of internal ones also, including cartoons and graphics. Personally I find only a minority of them appealing or a turn-on but as an historical survey this is pretty good and several countries are represented.

Don't be mislead by the advertized cover photo. You won't find it in this book. There are a few poorly reproduced photos of Roberta Pedon, but not worth the purchase price of this book. The small amount of info on this model is inaccurate and almost seems ficticious. If your not buying the book for the cover model, the book covers a large variety of men's magazine with a very small percent of the Big Bust genre. I hope this helps.

I really wish I could recommend this book for anyone interested in the popular culture of the 1970s, but I can't. Hanson provides us with scores of photos of models from the era, but virtually no substance. What little text there is is grossly padded by having parallell columns in English, German, and French.Hanson promises "in-depth" articles about five top models; instead we are presented three-paragraph puff pieces, at least two of which are in fact patently false.I gave this book a three-star rating. I overrated it.

If you like the subject matter, and boy do I!! You would be well advised to track down this series and make it a treasured addition to your library!!