Product Details
Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity

Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity
By Virginia Smith

List Price: £16.99
Price: £12.47 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery on orders over £5. Details

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk

37 new or used available from £4.40

Average customer review:

Product Description

Why do we still have nits? What exactly are 'purity rules'? And why have baths scarcely changed in 200 years? The long history of personal hygiene and purity is a fascinating subject that reveals how closely we are linked to our deeper past. In this pioneering book, Virginia Smith covers the global history of human body-care from the Neolithic to the present, using first-hand accounts and sources. From pre-historic grooming rituals to New Age medicine, from ascetics to cosmetics, Smith looks at how different cultures have interpreted and striven for personal cleanliness and shows how, throughout history, this striving for purity has brought great social benefits as well as great tragedies. It is probably safe to say that no-one who reads this book will look at his or her body (or bathroom) in quite the same way again.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #365865 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-05-24
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 416 pages

Editorial Reviews

Sunday Times Culture Magazine, May 20, 2007
A breath-taking account of cleanliness from prehistory right up to
the present day.

Review
[A] fascinating and detailed account. (Dr Susan Aldridge, Focus )

Smith has written a fact-rich book. (The First Post )

Lucid and wide-ranging. (Bee Wilson, The Times (Books) )

Jam-packed with historical information. (Jenny McCartney, Sunday Telegraph )

A breath-taking account of cleanliness from prehistory up to the present day. (Sophie Harrison, Sunday Times (Culture) )

Authoritative and fascinating. (New Scientist )

Lots of fascinating revelations. (Liz Jones, Evening Standard (London) )

London Standard, May 21, 2007
Lots of fascinating revelations.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive History4
It's a great study of the topic, touching on sociology, theology and psychology - but chiefly (as you'd expect) - on history. It takes us pretty much up to date, but I have to confess to feeling that the ending was both a little rushed and a little cursory. That said, the writing is intelligent, the examples plentiful and the scope of the work is unprecedented: so there's not much to argue with.