Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery

David L Gollaher

Basic Books, £17.80, pp 260 ISBN 0 465 04397 6

Rating:

Male circumcision is the most commonly performed surgical operation in the United States. Data for 1996 reveal that no less than 60% of all US male infants were circumcised. In contrast, the rest of the industrialised world has much lower rates of circumcision. In Britain circumcision is performed only for religious reasons or to correct defined medical conditions. How, then, are we to account for such …