An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote, Clean considers the bizarre prescriptions of history'sdoctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized. She reveals the bizarre rescriptions of history’s doctors as well as the hygienic peccadilloes of kings, mistresses, monks and ordinary citizens, and guides us through the twists and turns to our. What could be more routine than taking up soap and water and washing yourself? And yet cleanliness, or the lack of it, is intimately connected to ideas as large as spirituality and sexuality, and historical events that include plagues, the Civil War, and the discovery of germs. Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description. Stop washing'? And why is the German term Warmduscher - a man who washes in warm or hot water - invariably a slightĪgainst his masculinity? Katherine Ashenburg takes on such fascinating questions as these in Clean, her charming tour of attitudes to hygiene through time. Here is a quick description and cover image of book The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History written by Katherine Ashenburg which was published in. (Joy von Tiedemann, Knopf Canada) 10:57 Katherine Ashenburg on Her Turn Katherine Ashenburg is a writer and journalist who has worked for the Globe and Mail and the CBC. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote Josephine 'I will return in five days. Brief Summary of Book: The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg. 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.

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. The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History, North Point Press (New York, NY), 2007, published in England as Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, Profile. The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence.

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