History, it seems, is seldom written by the tattoed.
Tattoos were once rare and powerful. Today tattooing is everywhere. Integral to cultures from Polynesia, to the Amazon, to the Artic; they decorated supreme beings and express resilience against colonization. Indigenous tattooing has not only survive - it is being reborn globally.
Beneath all of this is the simple, innate desire to mark our skin. This book asks what the history of tattooing might tell us about the fundamental question: how does our skin make us who we are?