The dirt on clean : an unsanitized history

Summary: How do our standards of cleanliness compare with those of our ancestors, and how have we arrived at our present attitudes? The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is the author's starting point for a captivating exploration that yields surprising insights into our current notions of everything from privacy and health to religion and sexuality. Filled with amusing anecdotes, the author searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and bathrooms of every description--and guides us through the twists and turns to our own understanding of clean, which is no more rational than the rest.

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