Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Advanced
Title details for The Sensational Past by Carolyn Purnell - Wait list

The Sensational Past

by Carolyn Purnell
Liz Thompson
Audiobook
Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch-as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today. Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing "flea"-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense. As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell persuasively shows that, while our bodies may not change dramatically, the way we think about the senses and put them to use has been rather different over the ages. Journeying through the past three hundred years, Purnell explores how people used their senses in ways that might shock us now. And perhaps more surprisingly, she shows how many of our own ways of life are a legacy of this earlier time. Author bio: Carolyn Purnell received her PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a history instructor, an interior design writer, and a lover of bizarre facts. This is her first book.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc. Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781501969232
  • File size: 218468 KB
  • Release date: August 1, 2017
  • Duration: 07:35:08

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781501969232
  • File size: 218499 KB
  • Release date: August 1, 2017
  • Duration: 07:38:09
  • Number of parts: 9
Loading
Loading

Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Education History Philosophy Nonfiction

Languages

English

Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch-as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today. Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing "flea"-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense. As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell persuasively shows that, while our bodies may not change dramatically, the way we think about the senses and put them to use has been rather different over the ages. Journeying through the past three hundred years, Purnell explores how people used their senses in ways that might shock us now. And perhaps more surprisingly, she shows how many of our own ways of life are a legacy of this earlier time. Author bio: Carolyn Purnell received her PhD from the University of Chicago. She is a history instructor, an interior design writer, and a lover of bizarre facts. This is her first book.
Expand title description text
Education History Philosophy Nonfiction