Sensory History

Description

This book can be purchased by customers in the US or Canada from the University of California Press. Sensory History introduces a topic that is rapidly becoming of enormous interest to historians - incorporating the senses into our understanding of the past. The book defines "sensory history," stresses the importance of historicizing the senses, and considers each sense chapter by chapter. The author concludes by pondering future directions of the field. Drawing on examples from across the globe throughout time, Sensory History includes examinations of visual culture in Victorian Britain and South America, of sound in 19th-century Australia and France, and of gender politics and touch in Early Modern Europe and among Native Americans. It also discusses "race" and olfaction in the United States, scent in ancient Christianity, and the role of taste in shaping national identity in modern China and Early America. By attending carefully to the social history of the senses, Sensory History also reconsiders the value of paradigmatic explanatory models linking print, vision and modernity, and evaluates their relevance to the study of sensory history. Sensory History will be a key text for an emerging field.

Mark M. Smith is Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, USA. He is the author of several books, including Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South, which was co-winner of the Organization of American Historians' 1997 Avery O. Craven Award and the South Carolina Historical Society's Book of the Year. His work on sensory history has been featured in the New York Times.

"This book is an excellent introduction to a distinctive style of inquiry and a trustworthy guide to what is now a fast-emerging field of study." THE "Mark M. Smith has a good record of communicating his research to a broad constituency within and beyond the academy ... This will be required reading for anyone addressing sensory history." Penelope Gouk, Manchester University "In this inspiring book, Mark M. Smith blows the dust off the documents and monuments historians normally concentrate on in their efforts to reconstruct the past, and breathes new life into the sounds and textures, scents and sights that have shaped the consciousness of historical actors from antiquity to the present. Sensory History thus makes for sensational reading, and at the same time offers a critical take on the burgeoning literature in this dynamic new field of inquiry. Smith's history of the sensate is destined to precipitate a revolution in our understanding of the sensibilities that underpinned the mentalities of past epochs." David Howes, Concordia University "Mark M. Smith presents a far-ranging essay on the history of the senses that serves simultaneously as a good introduction to the historiography. If one feels in danger of sensory overload from this growing body of scholarship, Smith's piece is a useful preventive." Leigh E. Schmidt, Princeton University "This is a masterful overview. The history of the senses has been a frontier field for a while now. Mark Smith draws together what we know, with an impressive sensory range, and encourages further work. A really exciting survey for established practitioners and ambitious students alike." Peter N. Stearns, George Mason University "Who would ever have guessed that a book on the history of the senses--seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling--could be informative, thought-provoking, and, at the same time, most entertaining? Ranging in both time and locale, Mark Smith's Sensory History makes even the philosophy about the senses from ancient times to now both learned and exciting. This work will draw scholars into under-recognized subjects and lay readers into a world we simply but unwisely take for granted." Bertram Wyatt-Brown 'This interesting and unusual book is about incorporating the senses into our understanding of the past.' Network Review (The Scientific and Medical Network), Spring 2008