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From the mid-19th century onwards, the construction and representation of the body has been deeply implicated in the development of capitalist economies. This study reveals how the ideologies of state power and gender politics become literally embodied, through an analysis of literature, art and film. Using accounts of commodity and sexual fetishism outlined by Marx and Engels, the book traces the relationship between desire and consumption. Man-made female bodies, from the animated doll in E.T.A. Hoffman's story "The Sandman" to the 1974 horror movie "The Stepford Wives", have, according to this author, exerted a strong hold over the modern imagination, oscillating between disgust and desire. As well as the changing image of the beautiful female body, the author looks as the more recent commodification of male bodies as presented in modern fashion magazines and by film stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Swarzenegger. He also investigates mannequins, gynoids, replicants and robots as indices of how we view modern bodies in a complex triangulation between simulation, spectacularization and death.