Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing - Katherine Ashenburg

Canadian writer Katherine Ashenburg takes us through centuries of filth and bad odour, washing and bathing in Western societies, from Homer's Greece through to the malodorous middle ages and right up to our present day over-sanitised age where a multi-billion dollar advertising industry incessantly manipulates us into eliminating or disguising our natural human odours at all costs. I requested this book as a present after reading a review about it in a weekend newspaper. The topic seemed original and I thought it would be interesting to compare our clean obsessed society with those of times gone when, as Ashenburg writes; "the scent of one another's bodies was the ...  Read the complete review