Sniff
A History of Smells
$42.98
- Hardcover
384 pages
- Release Date
28 December 2026
Summary
A remarkable account of the weird and wonderful history of smell
Across vast periods of time and around the globe, smell has been central to human life. From the incense burned in medieval religious rituals to the use of modern sniffer dogs, smells have been central to our sense of identity, our ability to build communities, and, perhaps less positively, to mark those deemed unwelcome within them. Our sense of smell brings us the pleasure of good food, wine and perfum…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780300282597 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0300282591 |
| Author: | Will Tullett |
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Imprint: | Yale University Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 384 |
| Release Date: | 28 December 2026 |
| Weight: | 454g |
| Dimensions: | 24mm x 152mm x 235mm |
Critics Review
“I’m with Dr Tullett and his marvellous tome on scents and sensibleness: ‘Open your nose to smell. The more of it we can smell, the more of it we can save.’“—John Lewis-Stempel, Country Life
“Tullett invites us to follow our noses into history, discovering the fascinating stories behind smells past and present. This is a stunning book full of surprises and revelations—and always alive to the politics of scents and stinks across history and today.”—Catherine Clarke, author of A History of England in 25 Poems
“Sniff explores sensory landscapes, evoking newspaper ink, old books, and the chemical tang of new cars. This profound, sweeping history reveals how powerful scents have defined human experiences.”—Emily Cockayne, author of Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters
“A deeply researched, revelatory and hugely entertaining sensory odyssey. Sniff hopscotches nimbly across centuries and continents to take us to some wonderful and terrifying places—ancient Rome, medieval China, the Shakespearian stage, the Victorian city, the trenches of the Great War, a modern funeral home—and reveals the myriad ways that smells evoke danger, pleasure, memories, places, bodies, in fact are the very stuff of life. Brilliant.”—David Hendy, author of Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening
Will Tullett
Will Tullett is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of York. He is the author of Smell in Eighteenth-Century England: A Social Sense and Smell and the Past: Noses, Archives, Narratives.
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