In this vivid and highly original reading of recent Chinese history, Xuelei Huang documents the eclectic array of smells that permeated Chinese life from the High Qing through to the Mao period. Utilising interdisciplinary methodology and critically engaging with scholarship in the expanding fields of sensory and smell studies, she shows how this period of tumultuous change in China was experienced through the body and the senses. Drawing on unexplored archival materials, readers are introduced to the 'smellscapes' of China from the eighteenth to mid-twentieth century via perfumes, food, body odours, public health projects, consumerism and cosmetics, travel literature, fiction and political language. This pioneering and evocative study takes the reader on a sensory journey through modern Chinese history, examining the ways in which the experience of scent and modernity have intertwined.

'Scents of China leads us by the nose on a journey through key moments in modern Chinese history and literature. Bringing scientific, theoretical, and historical scholarship to bear on diverse archival materials, Huang evokes the unruly, indeterminate qualities of smell that exceed the rationalizing drives of China’s olfactory revolution.'

Hsuan L. Hsu - author of The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics

'Xuelei Huang’s superb new book is a masterful reconsideration of late imperial and modern Chinese history through the prism of the nose. Drawing deeply on archival materials and theories of the human sensorium, Huang pursues the lost scents of the past to show how ‘smellscapes’ both foul and fragrant helped to define what made China modern. This imaginative and adventurous book will be required reading for students and scholars of Chinese cultural history.'

Margaret Hillenbrand - author of On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China (Columbia University Press, forthcoming 2023)

'Embark on a memorable olfactory journey through modern China's past with Huang Xuelei's brilliant book. This groundbreaking study uncovers scent's untapped power in shaping culture and politics. Meticulous research and captivating storytelling reveal a hidden aromatic world, breathing life into history like never before.'

Christian Henriot - author of Scythe and the City

‘… exquisitely argued and exhaustively researched … Replete with adept theorization, multi-layered arguments laid out in clear prose, and inspiring new interpretations of well-worn sources, Scents of China is sure to be a defining work.’

Nicole Elizabeth Barnes Source: Journal of Chinese History

‘Groundbreaking and insightful … Anyone who calls him/herself a scholar of modern China should take this olfactory journey’

Yangwen Zheng Source: Cultural and Social History