The Dirt on Clean An Unsanitized History

The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote to Josephine, "I will return in five days. Stop washing"? And why is the German termWarmduschera man who washes in warm or hot waterinvariably a slight against his masculinity? Katherine Ashenburg takes on such fascinating questions as these inThe Dirt on Clean, her charming tour of attitudes toward hygiene through time. An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote,The Dirt on Cleanconsiders the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized.

Katherine Ashenburg is a journalist, lecturer, and regular contributor to The New York Times. Her last book with FSG, The Mourner’s Dance, was published in 2003.

“Brimming with lively anecdotes, this well-researched, smartly paced and endearing history of Western cleanliness holds a welcome mirror up to our intimate selves, revealing deep-seated desires and fears spanning 2000-plus years.” —Publishers Weekly