Product Description

’I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.’ So wrote Napoleon to Josephine in an age when body odour was considered an aphrodisiac. In stark contrast, the Romans used to bath for hours each day. Ashenburg’s investigation of history’s ambivalence towards personal hygiene takes her through plague-ridden streets, hospitals and battlefields. From the bizarre prescriptions of doctors to the eccentricities of famous bathers, she presents us with all the twists and turns that have led us to our own, arbitrary notion of ‘clean’.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20020 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
"'Ashenburg rolls up her sleeves and takes us on an engaging tour of hygiene through the ages. Her masterful mix of erudition and anecdote makes this a fascinating, fast-paced read' - Time Out 'The only possible complaint about Ashenburg's exceptionally enjoyable book is that, being beautifully designed and illustrated, it is not suitable for reading in the bath.' - Sunday Times 'Thought provoking, charming and great fodder for dinner-party chat, this is a memorable read.' - Time Out 'This is a sparkling, discursive and witty history: good, clean fun.' - New Statesman '[T]errific history of personal hygiene... A wonderfully interesting and amusing book.' - Daily Mail"

About the Author
Katherine Ashenburg has worked as an academic, a radio producer and Arts and Books editor of the Globe and Mail. She has written for the New York Times and her books include The MournerÂ’s Dance: What We Do When People Die. She lives in Toronto.

Customer Reviews

Don't read while eating
This is an extremely interesting and enlightening book. The author explains the belief systems behind washing (or non-washing) habits and sanitation through the ages; this makes other people's practices far easier to understand. If you believe that washing opens the pores and thus can let fatal diseases into the body, that linen has special cleansing properties and that only the morally corrupt are interested in smelling sweet then dirt has a certain appeal. The book investigates all sorts of wonderful bathing and showering inventions and the anecdotes and illustrations add depth and detail. The twentieth century section is great anthropology for our times, and I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in social history.

Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing
This is a very good, well written book. It is extremely informative and has unearhted, blown many myths I believed about cleaning and washing habits.The book is written in a very enteraining, easy to read style.

Clean and not-so-Clean
An entertaining study of the extremes of attitude towards bodily cleanliness and personal hygiene that have prevailed over the centuries.

Both cleanliness and extreme filthiness have been thought to be Godly, healthy and good at different times. When everybody smelt, then in effect nobody smelt, because body odour, being universal, went unnoticed.

Interestingly, apart from smell, vermin and skin complaints, a dirty body does not cause serious illness, whereas its opposite extreme, e.g. in postwar America, excessive and aseptic cleanless has led to reduced resistance to infections and to increased allergies, and completely deodorised bodies are stripped of the sexual allure given by natural personal scents which are unconciously detected by suitors.