Hubbub

"Modern city-dwellers suffer their share of unpleasant experiences - traffic jams, noisy neighbours, pollution, food scares - but urban nuisances of the past existed on a different scale entirely, Hubbub shows in vivid detail. Focusing on offences to the eyes, ears, noses, taste buds, and skin of inhabitants of England's pre-Industrial Revolution cities, Hubbub transports us to a world in which residents were scarred by small pox, refuse rotted in the streets, pigs and dogs roamed free, and food hygiene consisted of little more than spit and polish. Through the stories of a large cast of…