In this pioneering book, Virginia Smith combines archeology,
psychology, biology, and sociology to reveal how and why standards
of cleanliness have come to exist today. Using hundreds of
first-hand accounts and sources, Smith bring us from the Neolithic
age to the present, peppering her engaging prose with enlightening
and often surprising details.
Subconscious cleanliness has been with us since the first cell
ejected a foreign invader. Even at the earliest stages of human
development, our bodies produced pleasure-giving chemical opiates
when things smelled or felt clean, inducing us to do things like
bathing and removing dirty clothes. The need to be clean led
directly to socialization, as we turned to our fellows for help
with those hard to reach spots. In Eurasia during the Bronze Age,
an emerging hierarchy of wealthy elites turned their love of
grooming into an explosion of the cosmetic and luxury goods
industry, greatly effecting the culture and economy of a vast area
and leading to advances in chemistry and medicine.
The history that follows, from Greece and Rome, where citizens
focused much of their leisure time on perfecting, bathing, or just
writing about the model athletic body, through Europe in the middle
ages and the following centuries, is full of intriguing customs,
convoluted treatises, and many reversals. Baths were good for you,
baths were bad for you, baths were good again--but only if they
were quite cold. Even the enlightened medical knowledge of modern
times could not stop an onslaught of health remedies, treatments,
spas, and New Age nature cures that were to follow. While today we
are immeasurably closer--perhaps too close--to knowing just what
"clean"means to our bodies, we are still just as far as we ever
were on agreeing what it means to our souls.
This engrossing and highly original work will introduce you to the
customs and ideas of a myriad of cultures from centuries of human
history. Not only will you gain a new perspective on the wonderful
diversity of the world, but you'll never look at your toothbrush
the same way again.
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
