![The Civilization of Smells | Robert Muchembled](https://athenaeum.com/2729-medium_default/the-civilization-of-smells-robert-muchembled.jpg)
![The Civilization of Smells | Robert Muchembled](https://athenaeum.com/2729-medium_default/the-civilization-of-smells-robert-muchembled.jpg)
Why does the sense of smell, this essential sense for adapting to danger and locating a sexual partner, remain so unknown? In The Civilization of Odors (16th-early 19th century), Robert Muchembled reveals to us the extraordinary mutations of this sense in the West, from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 19th century. Using rich and varied sources, Muchembled conducts a captivating investigation into the evolution of the sense of smell, from the miasmas of human concentrations to the latest scientific discoveries, including the olfactory revolution of the 18th century.
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Why is the sense of smell, a fundamental sense for adapting to danger and identifying the best sexual partner, so little known?
Its paradoxical history, if one delves into it, is one of the most captivating. In this unparalleled synthesis, Robert Muchembled investigates and presents the extraordinary transformations of the sense of smell in the West, from the Renaissance to the early 19th century.
The sources used are numerous and rich: physiognomy manuals; works by doctors, philosophers, poets, storytellers, theologians, polemicists, moralists; treatises on civility, "Secrets for Ladies" treatises; royal edicts; regulations of the perfumer-glove maker profession, post-mortem inventories (apothecaries, perfumer-glove makers); iconography of the olfactory sense...
Muchembled seizes this extraordinary collection and outlines the history of the powerful repression that, for half a millennium, has led us to consider the sense of smell as the most contemptible of senses before recently elevating it to the rank of the most refined.
From the miasmas exhaled by human concentrations to the nauseating intimate emanations, from the "excremental" scents (musk, civet, and amber) supposedly protective against the plague to the condemnations by moralists, from the 18th-century olfactory revolution that transformed a drop of floral or fruity perfume into a vector of hedonism to the latest scientific discoveries, Muchembled invites his reader on an extraordinary olfactory journey through the civilization of manners.
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"A fascinating study with unsuspected extensions"
(Historia)
"A precise, lively, and delightful book."
(Les Cahiers de Science & Vie)
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