Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Katherine Ashenburg
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 368
Napoleon once wrote in a love letter to Josephine 'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' To smell like a human was not always the misdemeanour it is today. Body odour was in fact an important factor of sex and courtship, considered by some to be a powerful aphrodisiac, as we see in Napoleon's letter. Contrary to what we like to think, no bodily odour is innately disgusting, instead it is our noses which adapt to fit our beliefs. The Romans would bathe in company and daily. Later, Europe underwent four centuries without a bath. Was it the threat of diseases like syphilis that it feared in the soapy water? Religion links the act of washing with forgiveness and regeneration. We wash the bodies of dead loved ones because somehow we imagine it as the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The history of washing our bodies reveals much about our intimate selves, about how we want to be seen and what we desire most . In this gripping new history, Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, hospitals, battlefields and makeshift water closets. In the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the eccentricities of famous bathers and the hygienic peccadilloes of great writers we see the twists and turns that have brought us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.
Author: Katherine Ashenburg
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 368
Napoleon once wrote in a love letter to Josephine 'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' To smell like a human was not always the misdemeanour it is today. Body odour was in fact an important factor of sex and courtship, considered by some to be a powerful aphrodisiac, as we see in Napoleon's letter. Contrary to what we like to think, no bodily odour is innately disgusting, instead it is our noses which adapt to fit our beliefs. The Romans would bathe in company and daily. Later, Europe underwent four centuries without a bath. Was it the threat of diseases like syphilis that it feared in the soapy water? Religion links the act of washing with forgiveness and regeneration. We wash the bodies of dead loved ones because somehow we imagine it as the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The history of washing our bodies reveals much about our intimate selves, about how we want to be seen and what we desire most . In this gripping new history, Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, hospitals, battlefields and makeshift water closets. In the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the eccentricities of famous bathers and the hygienic peccadilloes of great writers we see the twists and turns that have brought us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.
Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Katherine Ashenburg
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 368
Napoleon once wrote in a love letter to Josephine 'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' To smell like a human was not always the misdemeanour it is today. Body odour was in fact an important factor of sex and courtship, considered by some to be a powerful aphrodisiac, as we see in Napoleon's letter. Contrary to what we like to think, no bodily odour is innately disgusting, instead it is our noses which adapt to fit our beliefs. The Romans would bathe in company and daily. Later, Europe underwent four centuries without a bath. Was it the threat of diseases like syphilis that it feared in the soapy water? Religion links the act of washing with forgiveness and regeneration. We wash the bodies of dead loved ones because somehow we imagine it as the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The history of washing our bodies reveals much about our intimate selves, about how we want to be seen and what we desire most . In this gripping new history, Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, hospitals, battlefields and makeshift water closets. In the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the eccentricities of famous bathers and the hygienic peccadilloes of great writers we see the twists and turns that have brought us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.
Author: Katherine Ashenburg
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 368
Napoleon once wrote in a love letter to Josephine 'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' To smell like a human was not always the misdemeanour it is today. Body odour was in fact an important factor of sex and courtship, considered by some to be a powerful aphrodisiac, as we see in Napoleon's letter. Contrary to what we like to think, no bodily odour is innately disgusting, instead it is our noses which adapt to fit our beliefs. The Romans would bathe in company and daily. Later, Europe underwent four centuries without a bath. Was it the threat of diseases like syphilis that it feared in the soapy water? Religion links the act of washing with forgiveness and regeneration. We wash the bodies of dead loved ones because somehow we imagine it as the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The history of washing our bodies reveals much about our intimate selves, about how we want to be seen and what we desire most . In this gripping new history, Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, hospitals, battlefields and makeshift water closets. In the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the eccentricities of famous bathers and the hygienic peccadilloes of great writers we see the twists and turns that have brought us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.
Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing
$12.00