Our relationship with dirt is complex and ambivalent. Dirt is waste, excrement, rubbish, bacteria--but what then is soil, where crops grow, and to which our bodies eventually return? Dirt may pose significant risks to our health, but it is also vital to our existence. Lavishly illustrated, this exciting and often startling book is a provocative introduction to a vast and complex subject. Five writers and a graphic novelist pursue different themes from a range of perspectives in order to examine dirt and its contradictions, including personal grooming, the politics of dirt in the home, city sanitation, and waste disposal.