European nobles of the 16th century considered face washing unusual enough to chronicle in letters - which it probably was in an era when an upper-class mother picking lice out of her child's hair was considered an image suitable for framing. If nothing else, Ashenburg has compiled a catalog of bodily putrescence chilling to those of us who love nothing more than a boiling shower with gobs of expensive Portuguese soap. In Ashenburg's account, our entire civilization spent most of its wayward career marinating in - insisting upon, even - grime and stench most modern Americans would take as a sign of outright insanity.Īch, the filth. The great Homer Simpson once summarized a close call with lifestyle oblivion by noting that it left him "as dirty as a Frenchman." Readers of "The Dirt on Clean," Canadian writer Katherine Ashenburg's history of hygiene in the Western world, learn that the Sage of Springfield coined too narrow a comparison. By Katherine Ashenburg FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX 358 PAGES $24
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