How vermin went from being part of everyone's life to a mark of
disease, filth, and lower status. For most of our time on this
planet, vermin were considered humanity's common inheritance.
Fleas, lice, bedbugs, and rats were universal scourges, as
pervasive as hunger or cold, at home in both palaces and hovels.
But with the spread of microscopic close-ups of these creatures,
the beginnings of sanitary standards, and the rising belief that
cleanliness equaled class, vermin began to provide a way to scratch
a different itch: the need to feel superior, and to justify the
exploitation of those pronounced ethnically-and
entomologically-inferior. In Getting Under Our Skin, Lisa T.
Sarasohn tells the fascinating story of how vermin came to signify
the individuals and classes that society impugns and ostracizes.
How did these creatures go from annoyance to social stigma? And how
did people thought verminous become considered almost a species of
vermin themselves? Focusing on Great Britain and North America,
Sarasohn explains how the label "vermin" makes dehumanization and
violence possible. She describes how Cromwellians in Ireland and US
cavalry on the American frontier both justified slaughter by
warning "Nits grow into lice." Nazis not only labeled Jews as
vermin, they used insecticides in the gas chambers to kill them
during the Holocaust. Concentrating on the insects living in our
bodies, clothes, and beds, Sarasohn also looks at rats and their
social impact. Besides their powerful symbolic status in all
cultures, rats' endurance challenges all human pretentions. From
eighteenth-century London merchants anointing their carved
bedsteads with roasted cat to repel bedbugs to modern-day hedge
fund managers hoping neighbors won't notice exterminators in their
penthouses, the studies in this book reveal that vermin continue to
fuel our prejudices and threaten our status. Getting Under Our Skin
will appeal to cultural historians, naturalists, and to anyone who
has ever scratched-and then gazed in horror.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(4)
