The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

I'm a little disappointed in this book. It's ... too clean. It discusses in detail the number of bathhouses in different centuries, different countries - who cares? I wanted to know the dirty details of people's everyday lives. Some of the things I've always wondered about are - how did frontier pioneers keep eight babies in a succession clean without running water? What did women do during their periods when they didn't even wear underwear? Which creatures lived in Mme Pompadour's towering hair? What were the health effects on years of dirtiness - rashes? bad skin? What are the teeth like if they are not brushed for decades? How old were people when they started loosing their teeth? What was used instead of toilet paper? How did the city streets smell when the chamber pots were emptied there? How did a complete lack of privacy in slums or on a trail affect relationships?

These were some of the things I was hoping to learn about, as they are not often discussed in history books. But none of these was described. This is an informative book (just wasn't for me).

This terrific book ranks right up there with `Inside the Victorian Home' and `Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking' as the kind of social History which adds essential context and meaning to the more common `lives' and `events' accounts we buffs usually devour in the normal course of our reading endeavors. Ms. Ashenburg presents a light-hearted but thoroughgoing look at `dirt' through the ages, particularly as it relates to human hygiene which has ranged from the Roman `clean as a whistle' to the medieval `dirty as a dog,' and does it with solid scholarship and a wry smile. I was in the midst of the read when I caught a re-run of an episode of `The Tudors', Showtime's often fatuous but highly entertaining account of the reign of Henry VIII, and it occurred to me that the judicious if anachronistic application of a little Prell and a bit of Dial might have saved two lives. Thomas Cromwell arranged Henry's marriage to the German princess Anne of Cleves. Henry took one, uh, sniff and pronounced her unacceptable because of her malevolent odors (this coming from a man whose famously stinky `un-healable' abscess made all around him hold their noses...and their tongues). Henry both separated himself from Anne and Cromwell's head from his torso and went on to marry Catherine Howard, a notorious tart who lasted months before having her date with the ax man. Just think if Henry had found Anne as fragrant as the Tudor rose. Would Cromwell have lived to spin more intrigues and Catherine to bed more courtiers? As recounted by Ms. Ashenburg, John Wesley is generally credited with the maxim, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." He might have added it can be a downright lifesaver.

Don't be put off by the somewhat ungainly title. `The Dirt on Clean' is a delightful read. So you'll be taking more showers and washing your hands with distressing regularity...it's worth it.

During my first summer in the US, where I arrived from the Eastern Europe, to my amazement people did not smell on the subway! They were different from the masses i left behind, where the more upscale folks would go to the public baths once a week, while the lower classes maybe once a month.

Now, reading this delightful book, I felt the circle has been closed - from the Roman baths (see my review of [[ASIN:0472088653 Bathing in Public in the Roman World]] to the muck of the Middle Ages, to the American headlong rush into cleanliness and beyond... This is a witty, intelligent, deeply researched and sourced book - a joy to read before a bath.

The thesis of the book is interesting--basically, hygiene and cleanliness are social constructs that have evolved over time. However, once that is established, the rest of the text get repetitive. This would have worked better as a magazine article. Additionally, mixed into the text are many sidebars with quotes and facts that aren't entirely related and serve only to distract. I wanted to like it but I stopped reading a third of the way through.

I read this almost a decade ago as research for a project I didn't get around to tackling until recently, and I figured I should reread Ashenburg's book so my understanding of her analysis is fresh.

And I enjoyed it just as much the second time through as I did the first. It's a thoroughly engaging, informative read that both makes me think and makes me feel lucky to have access to good sanitation. I highly recommend it.

Never bought a used book before, but no problem with this one!

Funny book!

Very informative and entertaining!

Very interesting!

And my mother wanted me to wash behind my ears. By historical standards I was a saint.