or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $0.88 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination
 
See larger image
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination [Paperback]

Alain Corbin (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

List Price: $31.50
Price: $30.24 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $1.26 (4%)
  Special Offers Available
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Thursday, February 2? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Textbook Student FREE Two-Day Shipping for students on millions of items. Learn more

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback $30.24  

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Buy $50 in qualifying physical textbooks, get $5 in Amazon MP3 Credit. Here's how (restrictions apply)

Frequently Bought Together

The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination + Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 (New Approaches to the Americas) + Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Series in History & Culture)
Price For All Three: $69.36

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a fascinating but difficult book, rooted in the commitment to "total" history pioneered by the French Annales school. Highly original and interdisciplinary, it discusses the development of Western attitudes about smell: changing theories about odors and their meaning. The author, a French history professor, traces modern attitudes to the public health movement of 18th-century France, where scientists studying the chemistry of air campaigned against the dangers of odoriferous slaughterhouses, cesspoools, swamps, corpses, and prisons. Various changes in behavior resulted: new theories about perfume, rituals of bodily hygiene, and polite revulsion at the "stinking" urban masses. For specialists in history, literature, and medicine. Marie Marmo Mullaney, History Dept., Caldwell Coll., N.J.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

[This book] is not only serious, but interesting and important; one of those studies that profoundly alters our understanding of both social life and history.
--Joan W. Scott (New York Times Book Review )

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.
--Michael Burns (Los Angeles Times Book Review )

The story has never been told more brilliantly, nor with such verve and perceptiveness. That alone would make Corbin's book worth reading, but one may read it as well for a deeper understanding of the roots of modern urban anxieties about the unwholesome...Corbin's book is a tour de force.
--Simon Schama (New Republic )

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 1, 1988)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0674311760
  • ISBN-13: 978-0674311763
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #717,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars smell, November 21, 2009
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination (Paperback)
Tis is fantastic book if you are intrested in history written from other point of view then we are used to.
I have understood partly how people lived couple hundred years ago and this is great
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews




Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject