Sensing the Past by Mark M Smith

Sensing the Past by Mark M Smith

Do we rely on different senses now than the ones we relied on in the past? How have our senses affected history? How have the senses themselves changed? What role have the senses played in the ways we discriminate? Exploring illuminating examples from antiquity to the twenty-first century, this lively, concise introduction to the essential, emerging field of sensory history presents a new way of looking at the past that takes the everyday, the average, and the banal as seriously as it takes the history of elites, the intellect, and the exceptional. Considering each of the five senses, Mark M. Smith explores diverse subjects: visual culture in Victorian Britain and South America; sound in nineteenth-century Australia and France; gender politics and touch in early modern Europe and in native America; 'race' and olfaction in the United States and scent in ancient Christianity; and, the role of taste in shaping national identity in modern China and early America.

"An informative and entertaining introduction to the underappreciated field of sensory history"--Science (Aaas) "Will remind readers why the history of the senses remains one of the most exciting avenues of historical research."--Isis

Mark M. Smith, Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, is the author of several books including How Race is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses and Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South, co-winner of the Organization of American Historians' Avery O. Craven Award and the South Carolina Historical Society's Book of the Year.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780520254961
ISBN 10	0520254961
Title	Sensing the Past
Author	Mark M Smith
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of California Press
Year published	2008-02-04
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.