Mocked or overlooked, toilets as a topic touch on many of the world’s problems. A shortage of such amenities is a hindrance to equality and dignity for mobile people, women, the unhoused and slum-dwellers. Well-researched and illustrated, this work advocates that toilets be made a public right, to make urban spaces more livable. It is also an unexpected stroll through history and politics, ranging from the sordid to the beloved, tradition to innovation, in the course of which readers will meet an 18th-century clockmaker, writer Victor Hugo, ad man Jean-Claude Decaux, dictator Stalin, and billionaire Bill Gates.