A lively tour through the biology, health, human performance, and popular culture of our bodies’ essential connective tissue.
Ligaments are the quiet workhorses of the human body. They anchor our bones, guide our movements, and protect our joints―yet they remain largely unseen and misunderstood. In Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands that Bind Us, orthopedic surgeon and acclaimed science writer Roy A. Meals explores anatomy, biology, history, health, human performance, and popular culture to unlock the mysteries of ligaments. Completing a trilogy that began with Bones: Inside and Out and Muscle: The Gripping Story of Strength and Movement, this richly illustrated volume–Ligaments: Holding Us Together (Johns Hopkins University Press, May 2026) offers a wide-ranging exploration of the anatomy, history, injuries, and cultural relevance of ligaments.
These bone-to-bone connectors are the critical linking mechanisms that allow our muscles to produce purposeful movement. Dr. Meals explains how ligaments
stabilize the skeleton like hinge pins on a door, resist the forces of gravity in the face and breasts, and contribute to feats of athleticism, contortion, and childbirth. Readers will learn how ligaments are stronger than steel, how they recover from injury (or fail to), and how they can be stretched, stiffened, or surgically replaced. He also clarifies the differences among ligaments, tendons, and fascia, and why some people are “double-jointed” and others are not. Covering current and emerging treatments for ligament injuries, including artificial and engineered ligaments, the book provides practical insights into maintaining joint stability and flexibility across the lifetime.
Whether examining career-ending sports injuries, congenital laxity, or the elasticity of the vocal cords, Dr. Meals builds a case for why ligaments deserve center stage in our understanding of movement and health.
―Stacy Hite, University of Virginia Clinical Practice GroupYou do not need to have majored in biology or be an orthopaedic surgeon to enjoy this book. Dr. Meals takes complex subjects like the importance of different ligaments in the body, and how they generally respond to injury, and explains them in ways that all can understand. Ligaments: Appreciating the Bands That Bind Us is a must-read for those that want to better understand their body and how it functions.
―Marc Safran, Stanford University