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History General

So clean

Lord Leverhulme, soap and civilisation

by (author) Brian Lewis

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2012
Category
General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780719089138
    Publish Date
    Oct 2012
    List Price
    $31.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

This book is an unorthodox biography of William Hesketh Lever, 1st Lord Leverhulme (1851-1925), the founder of the Lever Brothers' Sunlight Soap empire. Unlike previous biographies, which have focused on the man's life story and eccentricities, or just considered one aspect of his career, So clean places him squarely in his social and cultural context and is fully informed by recent historical scholarship. Much more than a warts-and-all biography, the book uses Lever as an entry-point for contextualized and comparative essays on the history of advertising; on factory paternalism, town planning, the Garden City movement and their ramifications across the twentieth century; and on colonialism and forced labour in the Belgian Congo and the South Pacific. It concludes with a discussion of his extraordinary attempt, in his final years, to transform crofting and fishing in the Outer Hebrides.

Written in an engaging and accessible style, So Clean will appeal to academics and students working in business, social, cultural and imperial history.

About the author

Contributor Notes

Brian Lewis is Associate Professor of History at McGill University, Montreal.