The Colour of Angels uncovers the gender politics behind our attitude to the senses. Using a wide variety of examples, ranging from the sensuous religious visions of the middle ages through to nineteenth-century art movements, this book reveals a previously unexplored area of womens history.

'With the blend of erudition and elegance we have now come to expect, Constance Classen's The Colour of Angels does much to restore the history of the senses to its proper importance.' - Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute

'It is a solid and imaginative contribution to both the history of the senses as well as to feminist scholarship from the middle ages up to the rise of modernism.' - Henry Luce, The University of Chicago

Constance Classen is a cultural historian whose previous publications include Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures and Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (with David Howes and Anthony Synnott).