If you are already familiar with Wardian cases, you’ll be delighted with this opportunity to learn the fascinating history of their discovery and development. And if you’re unfamiliar with them, this book will introduce you to one of the most on-the-surface mundane but in reality most world-changing technological innovations of the nineteenth century.
Did you bathe today? If you live in western Europe, the U.S., Canada, or any of the world’s other post-industrial countries, there’s an excellent chance you did. And if you didn’t, you almost certainly did yesterday. You also likely washed your clothes within the past week. A century ago, none of these things would have been so easily assumed. Three centuries ago, the odds would strongly favor a negative answer to these questions (Louis XIV of France, for example, took two baths over the entire course of his life). So what changed?