So Clean

This book is an unorthodox biography of William Hesketh Lever, 1st Lord Leverhulme (1851-1925), the founder of the Lever Brothers' Sunlight Soap empire. So Clean places Lever squarely in his social and cultural context and is fully informed by recent historical scholarship, using him as an entry-point for contextualised and comparative essays on the history of advertising.

The book explores subjects such as factory paternalism, town planning, the Garden City movement, and their ramifications across the twentieth century. It also delves into colonialism and forced labour in the Belgian Congo and the South Pacific.

So Clean concludes with a discussion of Lever's extraordinary attempt, in his final years, to transform crofting and fishing in the Outer Hebrides. Written in an engaging and accessible style, So Clean will appeal to academics and students working in business, social, cultural, and imperial history.