The Clean Body
A Modern History
Format:Hardback
Publisher:McGill-Queen's University Press
Published:1st Nov '19
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This book examines the evolution of personal hygiene in Europe and North America, detailing the profound cultural changes surrounding cleanliness. The Clean Body offers a comprehensive historical perspective.
In The Clean Body, Peter Ward delves into the fascinating history of personal hygiene across Europe and North America, tracing the evolution of the modern clean body. He poses intriguing questions about our ancestors' bathing habits, clothing changes, and their understanding of cleanliness. This exploration reveals the dramatic shifts in hygienic practices over time and examines how society's perception of cleanliness has transformed from a mere health requirement to a crucial aspect of beauty and identity.
The narrative begins in the age of Louis XIV, when bathing was infrequent and hygiene was primarily about wearing clean undergarments. Fast forward to the late twentieth century, and daily bathing and freshly laundered clothes have become the norm. Ward highlights the cultural revolution that has occurred since the seventeenth century, emphasizing the significant changes in motivations, ideologies, and technologies that have influenced our habits. This transformation is not just a reflection of personal choices but a broader societal shift that has impacted people across various demographics.
Drawing on a rich array of sources from multiple languages, The Clean Body provides a comprehensive survey of the hygienic revolution that unfolded over four centuries. Ward's engaging narrative uncovers the underlying factors that have shaped our contemporary understanding of cleanliness, making it an essential read for anyone interested in the intersections of culture, history, and personal care.
"As The Clean Body makes clear, the hygiene revolution was tied in with the rise of consumerism and its concomitant exploitation of natural resources — things that have contributed greatly to our current environmental tipping point." The Montreal Gazette
"In The Clean Body: A Modern History [Ward] promises to tell the story of the 'cleanliness revolution,' offering cleanliness as a lens through which to view a society in transition, whether culturally, technologically, or scientifically." Our environmental woes too are the logical conclusion to a history of growing consumption, of things as well as resources. As Ward writes, "Once an element of nature, [water] had become a commodity, an engineered product of the industrial economy, ... its presence in everyday life taken utterly for granted."" Literary Review of Canada
"The Clean Body is a beautifully written tour de force, a wonderfully accessible book, and a joy to read. Peter Ward draws extensively on the literature in four languages and moves with ease between rich empirical detail, theoretical soundings, and socioeconomic data." Brian Lewis, McGill University and co-editor of The Moral Mapping of Victorian and Edwardian London: Charles Booth, Christian Charity, and the Poor-but-Respectable
"A thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of practices that we would be mistaken to think of as natural or normal. Its study of centuries of hygiene is a prompt for us to reconsider our present-day pursuit of cleanliness." Winnipeg Free Press
ISBN: 9780773559387
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
336 pages