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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"
Book Description
'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
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
For the modern, middle-class North American, "clean" means that you shower and apply deodorant each and every day without fail. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
For the modern, middle-class North American, "clean" means that you shower and apply deodorant each and every day without fail. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't read while eating,
By biblia (North London, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing (Paperback)
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"When all stink, no-one smells",
By
This review is from: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing (Paperback)
Every age thinks that its own attitude to cleanliness is the "normal" one. We (modern Europeans and Americans) think that it's normal to shower daily and apply deodorant. Other ages had different ideas.
Ancient Romans thought it was normal to spend hours in the public baths, using no soap but scraping sweat and dirt off their bodies. Early medieval Europe had public baths which were used regularly; but these disappeared after the Black Death. Elizabeth I and Samuel Pepys lived in an age when bathing too much was thought bad for the health. The phrase "the great unwashed" could not have existed before the 19th century, because that was when the rich started bathing on a regular basis. In the 1920s, advertisers strove to convince women that they could never find and keep a husband without the correct hygiene products (the phrase "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" was invented by Lysterine), although previous generations managed to have a healthy love life despite their stinkiness. Ashenberg has written a fascinating history, outlining the changing attitudes to cleanliness and hygiene from Roman times to the modern day. She holds a mirror up to history and to our own day, when an overemphasis on squeaky-cleanness may be contributing to allergies and ill health (the "hygiene hypothesis"). The scope is limited to Europe and North America, except for a brief comment about the different attitudes of Muslim and Japanese people, but with that one caveat I would recommend this as an entertaining and informative read.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing,
By
This review is from: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing (Paperback)
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.
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