Odorama

What scents ruled in ancient Egypt or the Greek polis? How much did Paris, London, Buenos Aires or New York suck in the past? What did the astronauts smell when they reached the moon? Smells are time machines capable of taking us to remote times and places. Perfumes, fragrances and stenches affect how we feel and what we think. There are not enough words in our vocabulary to describe them or a device capable of capturing the olfactory trace of an era, but Federico Kukso shows that smells have left a trail over the centuries (from chronicles to medical or culinary records, from hieroglyphics to romantic letters) and how fascinating it is to follow. From the aroma of the big bang to the marketinian use of fragrances, through concerns about Aristotle's armpit smell, halitosis in Rome and the flourishing of the perfumers' guild under the reign of a Louis XIV determined to mask the lack of a good toilet, the wonderful journey that Kukso proposes is strewn with amazing stories. In an increasingly odorless world, marked by the constant vigilance of bad odor, and at a time when many have experienced the loss (temporary or permanent) of smell, this deep, elegant and tremendously funny book shows that aromas, with too often silenced and devalued, they are an astonishing axis from which to traverse the history of mankind.