The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized HistoryKathering Ashenburg2008

The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote Josephine "I will return in five days. Stop washing"? And why is the German term Warmduscher?a man who washes in warm or hot water?invariably a slight against his masculinity?

Titre original : The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History (2008)