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The Conversation
Lifestyle
Glen Jankowski, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Leeds Beckett University

The art of balding: a brief history of hairless men

Prince Harry Vincent van Gogh Disease United States
Man With a Tankard, by Frans van Mieris the Younger (1739). The Fitzwilliam Museum, CC BY-SA

Balding is really common, affecting more than 50% of men. It’s also physically inconsequential (bald men live just as long as haired men). So why, in his memoir Spare, does Prince Harry refer to his brother’s baldness as “alarming”?

A balding man working at a loom.
An Ancient Egyptian depiction of a balding man. John Gardner Wilkinson / British Library
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