Women's breasts have been idealized as symbols of femininity and motherhood. They have held great social and psychological significance as objects drawing intrusive gazes, and as images of self worth to be measured against an idealized form. It is no wonder, then, that a technology emerged to alter and "enhance" their appearance. Nora Jacobson traces the hundred-year history of one such technology: breast implants.

Organized both chronologically and thematically, this book examines the history of breast implant technology from 1895 to 1990, including the controversies that erupted in the early 1990s over the safety of the devices and the Food and Drug Administration's regulation of their use. Jacobson examines such topics as politics and bias in medical practice and the role of bureaucracies, corporations, and governments in establishing policy and regulating implant technology.

Susan Zimmermann talked with forty women about perhaps one of the most sensitive issues of body image and health - their breasts, the chief attribute of femininity. In the aftermath of the early 1990s controversy over the use of silicone breast implants, how do women decide to undergo surgery o enhance or reconstruct their bodies? How does surgery alter a woman's self-image? How did they face the possibility of debilitating autoimmune disease from rupturing or leaking implants?

Some opted for breast implants after mastectomies, others for cosmetic reasons. Some felt empowered by the surgery: "Being a woman, I just like breasts and felt like I got ripped off. ... I did it for myself." Others were pressured by their husbands: "He used to make fun of parts of my body. .... And, he made me believe that if I was ever to leave him, no one would have anything to do with me because I was this deformed type of person."

After surgery, some women were ecstatic, while others had a sense of inner conflict about what they had done to themselves: were they "faking it"? And a few were angry: "I was really angry inside that I had  had to put plastic bags filled with chemicals in my body in order for me to feel like I could do the Hoochie Koo on Saturday nights. ... I didn't wear tight clothes; I didn't want my children to find out."

Now, having faced years of medical and personal uncertainty, many have coped by reassessing their lives and their relationships, by sharing information and support with other women with implants, outreach that became a means for self-empowerment.