Vegetarianism and hygiene became global movements in the 19th
century, placing the body at the heart of private and public concerns
and attention. These two new books offer an entangled history of
knowledge and body practices from the 19th to the 20th century
spanning Europe, South Asia, West Africa and the US. How did notions
of purity shape religious, scientific and political debates and policies?

Linda Maria Ratschiller Nasim, Medical Missionaries and Colonial Knowledge in West Africa and Europe, 1885–1914: Purity, Health and Cleanliness, Cham 2023.
Julia Hauser, A Taste for Purity: An Entangled History of Vegetarianism, New York 2023.