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[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

Alain Corbin is Professor of History at the Sorbonne.

Introduction Part One: The Perceptual Revolution or the Sense of Smell on Trial 1. Air and the Threat of the Putrid 2. The Extremes of Olfactory Vigilance 3. Social Emanations 4. Redefining the Intolerable 5. The New Calculus of Olfactory Pleasure Part Two: Purifying Public Space 6. The Tactics of Deodorization 7. Odors and the Physiology of the Social Order 8. Policy and Pollution Part Three: Smells, Symbols, and Social Representations 9. The Stench of the Poor 10. Domestic Atmospheres 11. The Perfumes of Intimacy 12. The Intoxicating Flask 13. Laughter in a Bead of Sweat 14. The Odors of Paris Conclusion Notes Index