The Science of Walking

"Do you know how you walk? Most people consider walking to be a natural and self-evident activity of everyday life. Yet the mechanism of walking has long puzzled scientists and doctors. In The Science of Walking, Andreas Mayer provides a history of investigations of the human gait that emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines, including physiology, neurology, orthopedic surgery, anthropology, and psychiatry. The book analyzes the attempts to observe human (and animal) locomotion through the long nineteenth century and traces the effects of this new knowledge in other cultural domains, most notably literature and the visual arts"--