About this Book

At once encyclopedic and impressionistic, The Foul and the Fragrant is a masterful exposition of odors and the perception of odors from 1750 to the 'Pasteurian revolution' of the late nineteenth century. It is an important and, at times, fascinating voyage... Exploring with imagination and audacity the changing role of smell in the anxieties and antagonisms of the modern world, Corbin reminds us that social history, too long sanitized and too often abstract, must make room for the senses.