- 328 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
This book tells the story of an epochal change in the human condition that was part of what is often thought of as 'modernization' -a process that remade culture and society in France in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hygiene, Steven Zdatny convincingly contends, was that change. He reflects on how the development of hygiene: changed the way people thought about and treated their bodies; put an end to age-old afflictions and brought comfort where discomfort had been the unavoidable companion of existence; and helped produce a tripling of life expectancy.
The book considers how the evolution of hygiene produced a society where people washed often, changed their clothes every day, lived without lice and scabies, and performed their natural functions indoors. It reflects on developments in industrial plumbing, public education, government investment, the invention of new products to keep bodies and homes clean, and a parallel makeover in the expectations, sensibilities, and practices about what is 'proper' and what is disgusting. These developments, the study reveals, were not steady and did not happen everywhere at the same pace. But in the fullness of time, they produced a revolution in the human condition.
The book considers how the evolution of hygiene produced a society where people washed often, changed their clothes every day, lived without lice and scabies, and performed their natural functions indoors. It reflects on developments in industrial plumbing, public education, government investment, the invention of new products to keep bodies and homes clean, and a parallel makeover in the expectations, sensibilities, and practices about what is 'proper' and what is disgusting. These developments, the study reveals, were not steady and did not happen everywhere at the same pace. But in the fullness of time, they produced a revolution in the human condition.
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Yes, you can access A History of Hygiene in Modern France by Steven Zdatny in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & French History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-Title
- Dedication
- Title
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- 1 The Old Regime of Hygiene
- 2 Peasant Bodies, Peasant Homes
- 3 The Smell of the City
- 4 The Republic of Hygiene I—Dirt and Defense
- 5 The Republic of Hygiene II—In the Schools
- 6 Water in, Water Out
- 7 The Lived Environment of the Fin-de-Siècle
- 8 How Clean Was the Belle Epoque?
- 9 “A Decent Place to Live”
- 10 Hygiene between the Wars
- 11 The Hygiene Revolution
- Conclusion
- Index
- Copyright