Past Scents

Jonathan Reinarz is a professor of the history of medicine and Director at the History of Medicine Unit at the School of Medicine, University of Birmingham (U.K.). He is author of A History of the Birmingham Teaching Hospitals, 1779-1939.

"Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell by Jonathan Reinarz is an ambitious, lucid, and engaging book that brings some order to the ever-expanding academic literature on smelling, odors, and perfumery. . . . It will no doubt be a useful book for researchers and teachers for many years, and will also continue to be a thoughtful reflection on smell history, composed at a time when this subfield of historiography is particularly flourishing."--American Historical Review"Past Scents neatly summarizes many current historical perspectives on smell.  More importantly it points to a number of other contemporary perspectives we might take as historians and past sensory perspectives, of women and the lower classes to take two examples, that we might better excavate from the archive."--Reviews in History "This book suggests that engagement with the cultural work of smell both in the past and in the present can be richly rewarding. Reinarz's timely survey of historical perspectives on smell will (hopefully) inspire further research that will move us beyond simple binaries of fragrant/foul and self/other toward more redolent possibilities."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History "Past Scents will endure as a valuable compendium of smell scholarship."--H-Net Reviews "The volume is rich in factual detail and benefits from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective. . . . Reinarz has provided a significant contribution to the history of olfaction."--H-Soz-Kult "Past Scents makes a timely and welcome addition to the rapidly evolving scholarship on the history of the senses. Through an engaging tour of the field and a comprehensive survey of prior studies, Jonathan Reinarz awakens the reader's senses to the history and power of smell."--William A. Cohen, author of Embodied: Victorian Literature and the Senses "Reinarz's work ambitiously ranges between examples as diverse as fifth century Byzantium and contemporary Columbia, with thematic chapters presenting different prisms for examining the history of smell. . . . Demonstrates that the historiography of smell does not have to justify itself through calling attention to its former absence but can show how smell shaped religious, economic, colonial, gender and urban transformation."--Social History