Sign-In
Cart
Sniff: A History of Smells
Hardcover
General World HistoryNature Writing
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780300282597
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: Oct 27 2026
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.33
Height: 1.31 Width: 6.28 Depth: 9.51
Language: English
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 perfume, but it also warns us of dangerous fire, gas, and rot.
What did the past smell like? Why does our own world smell the way it does?
Moving through key locations, from libraries to forests, churches to hospitals, Will Tullett explores the peculiar history of smell. We smell witchcraft and murder, fin de siècle Parisian theatres, and cinemas in 1960s New York. What emerges is not just a history of smells, but biographies of the many noses that have sniffed them.
Also in
General World History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Titanic: The Ship Magnificent - Volume Two: Interior Design and Fitting Out
Hall, Steve
Beveridge, Bruce
Braunschweiger, Art
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal: A Food Science Nutrition History Book
Bittman, Mark
Hardcover
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Allies: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
Groom, Winston
Paperback
Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
McNeill, J. R.
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Baron, Scott
Wise, James E.
Hardcover
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
Green, John
Hardcover
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Ahamed, Liaquat
Hardcover
American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
Detrow, Scott
Burke, Daniel
Hardcover
Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers, and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution
Kiernan, Denise
Hardcover
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith
Morgan, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women
Mitchell, Claire
Venditozzi, Zoe
Paperback
The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America's First Ladies
Moaveni, Azadeh
Hardcover
The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
Clavin, Tom
Drury, Bob
Hardcover
How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
Galer, Sophia Smith
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America
Reynolds, David S.
Hardcover
The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice
Livingstone, Natalie
Hardcover
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Stamper, Kory
Hardcover
The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Hardcover
America in 25 Revolutions: The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Paperback
Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age
Tabor, James M.
Hardcover
Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Power
Isenberg, Nancy
Hardcover
A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps
Elledge, Jonn
Paperback
The Elections That Changed the World: Fifteen Pivotal Moments That Shaped How We Live
Bash, Dana
Hardcover
The Age of Alchemy: The Secret History of Chemistry from Ancient Magic to Modern Science
Chapman, Kit
Hardcover
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
Hardcover
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic
Stewart, Lindsey
Hardcover
The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions That Shook the World
Pancevski, Bojan
Hardcover
The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling from the Dawn of Print to the Twenty-First Century
Pettegree, Andrew
Hardcover
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paperback
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
Kaufman, Jonathan
Hardcover
On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World
Hazrat, Florence
Hardcover
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
No One's Coming: The Rogue Heroes Our Government Turns to When There's Nowhere Else to Turn
Hazzard, Kevin
Hardcover
The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within Us Slave Culture
Woodard, Vincent
Paperback
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
McGilchrist, Iain
Paperback
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover