The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

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.

An excellent history on human behavior related to hygiene over the centuries. Very well written, plenty of references.

This book was an easy read. This is not to say that it wasn't informative or well researched. It just wasn't dry reading, as many historical books can be. It made me very glad that I was not alive during the middle ages. The author states very clearly how attitudes and habits on cleanliness have changed in the past several thousand years.

Katherine Asheburg's The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History is perhaps the best read in 2007. Ashenburg's sense of irony as she delves into the meaning of clean comes across clearly to the reader. I'm not sure Ashenburg intended to be as humorous as she is or whether this sense of irony is what drives the humor, but I found myself smiling throughout the book. One of the biggest recommendations I can make is to those who teach marketing. It doesn't matter at what level, community college, junior college, or university. If you talk about advertising, product segmentation, target marketing, this is a must read. I also enjoyed Ashenburg's idea that cleanliness is a moving target. Clean is, in fact, relative. My parents only bathed weekly, as did I and my brother. We're products of the 50's and the Saturday evening bath whether you needed it or not. This fact grosses out my two daughters, products of the 70's and 80's. Of course, they take their twice daily showers that last at least 20 minutes. The problem was so severe that the paint constantly pealed from the woodwork due to exposure to excessive moisture. The point being in just one generation, the definition of cleanliness has shifted and shifted radically. The Dirt on Clean is loaded with examples pulled from throughout history. Much of western civilizations attitudes toward bathing is owed to our Arab brothers as is using a fork and washing of hands before eating. This is another ironic twist to me. The Dirt on Clean will be an interesting read on any one who loves to watch our society evolve and change. Highly recommended.

Do you smell bad? If you are reading this, it's a sure thing that you are a resident of the 21st century, and it's probable that you also are a resident of a society that reinforces regular bathing and use of deodorizers, so the answer is probably no. But then, if you were living five hundred years ago, the answer would probably be no, too, although if we were somehow to time-machine someone from that time to our own, we would probably answer yes in his particular instance. Katherine Ashenburg says that cleanliness is relative, or in her words "clean is a moving target", in her surprising history of attitudes toward dirt and grooming, _The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History_ (North Point Press). In her introduction, she writes, "Even more than in the eye or the nose, cleanliness is in the mind of the beholder. Every culture defines it for itself, choosing what it sees as the perfect point between squalid and over-fastidious." She makes the point by citing cigarette smoke; only a few decades ago, airplanes and restaurants were full of it, and most people, even nonsmokers, hardly noticed, let alone complained. Now we pick up on the smell immediately and take offense. "The nose is adaptable and teachable," Ashenburg writes, and she backs up the assertion with plenty of historical evidence. Her book gives a peculiar social history, one not covered in most history books. It is wonderfully entertaining, even though much of it is uncomfortable reading, first because those other people were so much dirtier than ourselves and they didn't seem to mind it, and second because we have been sold by advertising on a hypercleanliness that is beyond anything that health or social fitness demands. The Romans didn't use soap, though they liked soaking in public baths. The cleaning got done by oiling themselves up and using a special metal tool called a strigil to scrape off the oil and dirt. Social bathing was not something that fit into a Christian world view. "Many early saints embraced filth enthusiastically and ingeniously," says Ashenburg. The head of a convent in the fourth century warned her nuns, "A clean body and a clean dress mean an unclean soul." The Spanish Inquisition knew it was on the right track if an accused was "known to bathe," and Spanish confessors would not absolve those who washed regularly. There was an eventual turnaround for cities in which visitors could take the waters. Going to a spa was medical therapy, but eventually bathing was once again for getting clean. Advice books told people how to take baths for the best effect. It was nineteenth century America that took the lead in promoting personal hygiene. Ashenburg cites several reasons why this might be so, including having more room for bathrooms and the cleaning lessons of soldiers in the Civil War. Eventually, mild soaps from vegetable sources (like palm and olive oil to make Palmolive, get it?) insinuated themselves into homes by means of advertising, a c