EVER wondered where our obsession with cleanliness comes from? Then read this book. The journey starts in the Neolithic period and charts how personal hygiene and grooming emerged, and seeded broader ideas about spiritual purity and cleanliness. Smith highlights personal preening stories showing, for example, that some bathing habits have changed little for thousands of years. An authoritative and fascinating account of how hygiene has transformed societies and how, sometimes, humanity’s attempts to scrub up can backfire.
Clean: A history of personal hygiene and purity
Oxford University Press
