The Sensational Past: How the Enlightenment Changed the Way We Use Our Senses

　　如今對於啟蒙時期的印象，時常時對於「理性」的推崇。笛卡兒等重要的思想家們透過不斷的論辯、思考將人類的智性帶離了中古時期的幽暗，走向全新的里程碑，更為其後的科學觀察及發展奠定了重要的基礎。



　　不過，理性「Sense」其實有另外一個意思，指人們的「感官」。而在啟蒙時期的論述裡常常被遺忘的，是當時的人們不僅關心思辨能力能帶來的啟發，他們也相信，感官能力同樣具有轉換昇華個人的力量。理性與感性在當時是相合的概念，甚至有思想家認為，一切人們的思辨判斷，都來自於感官的經驗。



　　身為歷史學者以及「怪奇軼事愛好者」的Carolyn Purnell便立志為讀者帶來啟蒙時期的人們的感官史，像是使用活貓做鋼琴，來舒緩人們的憂鬱症、對於痛覺有點上癮等等；以及開始出現區別人們的身分地位的種種指標，原來家裡的裝潢色系、使用的肥皂有沒有香味、是否是美食愛好者，都影響了一個人所屬的社會位階。結合了各種往常歷史書籍裡未曾提及的趣聞，不僅打開讀者的知識，同時也能了解現在的許多感官使用方式從何而來，而我們又可能錯過了什麼感官能帶來的豐富體驗。(文/博客來編譯)

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.

The Sensational Past focuses on the ways in which small, peculiar, and seemingly unimportant facts open up new ways of thinking about the past. You will explore the sensory worlds of the Enlightenment, learning how people in the past used their senses, understood their bodies, and experienced the rapidly shifting world around them.

In this smart and witty work, Purnell reminds us of the value of daily life and the power of the smallest aspects of existence using culinary history, fashion, medicine, music, and many other aspects of Enlightenment life.