Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell. By Jonathan Reinarz (Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2014) 296 pp. $90.00 cloth $25.00 paper Unavailable

Reinarz’s Past Scents aims to offer a “comprehensive and coherent introduction to the history of smell” (1), a subject usually defined by its ephemerality, diffusiveness, and visceral impact rather than its cultural or historical significance. Its challenge to the traditional history of olfaction more than hits the mark, presenting not only a rich overview of the cultural history of olfaction but also a compelling synthesis of historiographical approaches to this topic and a sharp summary of the state of the field. Reinarz draws extensively from recent work while also expanding its purview to include the insights of anthropologists, literary scholars, classicists, art historians, and sociologists, as well as insights from the history of medicine. The strength of the book lies in its interdisciplinary and transtemporal approach; that Reinarz can achieve such breadth without sacrificing the variances inherent in this topic is a real achievement. The result is a comprehensive, coherent,...