History of Shit (Histoire de la merde: Prologue) is a 1978 book by French psychoanalyst Dominique Laporte (1949–1984). It uses an idiosyncratic method of historical genealogy derived from, among others, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Georges Bataille, and Michel Foucault, to show how the development of sanitation techniques in Western Europe affected the formation of modern notions of individuality. Laporte examines this influence through the historical processes of urbanization, the apotheosis of nationalism, practices of capitalist exchange, and linguistic reform.