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The Smile Revolution in Eighteenth Century Paris 256 pages | 48 black &#38; white halftones | 234x156mm978-0-19-871581-8 | Hardback | 25 September 2014Also available as: eBookPrice:  £22.99Un beau livre, qui décrit la nouveauté du sourire à pleins dents à la fin du XVIIIe siècle à Paris :How western civilization first discovered the smile - and learned to stop frowning at the art of smilingThe story of a 'smile revolution' on the eve of political revolution in eighteenth century Paris - undoing centuries of western disdain for the practiceShows how the Reign of Terror soon wiped the smile off people's faces - until the re-emergence of the smile in the twentieth centuryRanges from the history of art, literature, and culture, to science, medicine, and dentistry to reveal the true story of an expression at the heart of western civilizationYou could be forgiven for thinking that the smile has no history; it has always been the same. However, just as different cultures in our own day have different rules about smiling, so did different societies in the past. In fact, amazing as it might seem, it was only in late eighteenth century France that western civilization discovered the art of the smile. In the 'Old Regime of Teeth' which prevailed in western Europe until then, smiling was quite literally frowned upon. Individuals were fatalistic about tooth loss, and their open mouths would often have been visually repulsive. Rules of conduct dating back to Antiquity disapproved of the opening of the mouth to express feelings in most social situations. Open and unrestrained smiling was associated with the impolite lower orders.In late eighteenth-century Paris, however, these age-old conventions changed, reflecting broader transformations in the way people expressed their feelings. This allowed the emergence of the modern smile par excellence: the open-mouthed smile which, while highlighting physical beauty and expressing individual identity, revealed white teeth. It was a transformation linked to changing patterns of politeness, new ideals of sensibility, shifts in styles of self-presentation - and, not least, the emergence of scientific dentistry. These changes seemed to usher in a revolution, a revolution in smiling. Yet if the French revolutionaries initially went about their business with a smile on their faces, the Reign of Terror soon wiped it off. Only in the twentieth century would the white-tooth smile re-emerge as an accepted model of self-presentation.In this entertaining, absorbing, and highly original work of cultural history, Colin Jones ranges from the history of art, literature, and culture to the history of science, medicine, and dentistry, to tell a unique and untold story about a facial expression at the heart of western civilization.Readership: All those interested in the cultural, artistic, scientific, and medical history of western civilization - and the history of revolutionary France in particular