The book examines smell from a socio-cultural perspective and, in an erudite and reader-friendly style with numerous illustrations offers valuable and important considerations on the sense of smell beyond the realm of anatomy and physiology. The author locates the smell in culturally diverse settings, examines the complexities of verbalising smells, linking it to memory, prejudice, rumour, emotion, and sexuality, offers insights into the role of smell in literature, cinematic art, intangible cultural heritage, and museum practise, and describes in detail the legal regulation of smell and the background to scent marketing that seeks to influence consumer buying habits. The book also offers insights into the sense of smell from the fields of philosophy, medical history, diagnostics, and evolution, not only due to the current consequences of the coronavirus epidemic, which has led to millions of people losing their sense of smell and therefore thinking more about the quality of life with a diminished sense, but also due to reflections on how the environment and society influence sensory perception and thus the relationships and interpretation of the olfactory world around us. 

 

The book was published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage under the auspices of UNESCO and the research conducted as part of the basic project “Smell and Intangible Cultural Heritage” (ARIS; J7-50233), under the direction of Mojca Ramšak.