Why read The Smile Revolution?

Book cover of The Smile Revolution: In Eighteenth Century Paris

Book description

You could be forgiven for thinking that the smile has no history; it has always been the same. However, just as different cultures in our own day have different rules about smiling, so did different societies in the past. In fact, amazing as it might seem, it was only in…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Smile Revolution as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

David Garrioch

Author

People have always smiled, right? Wrong. Jones shows that in the early 18th century, open mouths were considered repulsive, partly because most people had terrible teeth. He looks at dentistry in 18th-century Paris, at what the smile meant, at the reasons smiling became acceptable. But then it went out of fashion again, at least in public, until the 20th century. Brilliant.

From David's list on The best books on the social history of eighteenth-century Paris.