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A Day in the Life Studying Daily Life through History
Peter N. Stearns
Book Code: GR3233
ISBN: 0-313-33233-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33233-3
240 pages, photos
Greenwood Press
Publication: 12/30/2005
List Price: $57.95 (UK Sterling Price: £31.95)
Discount Price: $40.57 Greenwood Press Fall 2008 Backlist Sale. Use code 0826. Save 30%. Ends 12/31/2008.
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 7 x 10
Subjects: Reviews:
  • This collection of essays asks a series of intriguing questions - such as why dolls originally came with mourning clothes and caskets - the answers to which reveal a great deal about culture and history. Aimed at high school students, the text covers topics about normal people in normal times, including the body in health, disease and medicine, material culture, work and consumerism. Each essay concludes with an annotated bibliography and suggestions for further research.
    —Reference & Research Book News     February 2006
Description: The history of daily life is one of the fastest growing areas of student inquiry and popular interest. Little wonder it raises so many mesmerizing questions and makes the familiar fascinating. What does it mean, for example, that dolls for American girls in the 1870s and 1880s often came complete with caskets and mourning clothes? Or, when and why did work and leisure become two separate spheres in most people's lives? What do the foods one eats tell us about class, gender, or even health? What do our ways of celebrating holidays tell us about our cultures and ourselves? A Day in the Life offers the background information needed to start a serious look at these, and many other, fascinating and vital questions. Edited and led by Peter N. Stearns, eminent social historian and Chair of the Advanced Placement World History committee, this book offers a guided tour of the current state of scholarship on daily life, providing an indispensable aid to students and teachers interested in the how's and why's of the little and big things people do, think, and feel as a matter of course throughout their lives. Designed to lay out the broader currents of the scholarship on daily life and the many directions for inquiry that have recently opened, this book will appeal to students and teachers alike. It guides readers to the wider questions raised by studies of normal people in normal times, doing normal things. Topics covered include:
  • The history of daily life
  • Writing the history of private life
  • The body in health, disease, and medicine
  • Popular culture, religion, science and education
  • Material culture
  • Politics, the state, crime, and deviancy
  • Work, living standards, consumerism
  • Leisure and recreation
    Every piece concludes with an in-depth annotated bibliography that guides readers to the most important and useful works on the topic and related issues. along with suggestions for further research. The work is fully indexed.
    • Table of Contents:
    • Introduction: The History of Daily Life: Whys and Hows by Peter N. Stearns
    • Writing the History of Private Life by Steven Mintz
    • The Body in Health, Disease and Medicine by Jacqueline Wilkie
    • History of Daily Life: Popular Culture, Religion, Science and Education by Lynn Wood Mollenauer
    • Material Culture and Daily Life by Julie Richter
    • Politics, The State, Crime and Deviancy by Marilynn Johnson
    • Economic Life as Daily Life: Work, Living Standards, and Consumerism by Peter N. Stearns
    • Leisure and Recreation by Gary Cross
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