Book cover of The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790-1840

Book description

"Compact and insightful. "--New York Times Book Review "Jack Larkin has retrieved the irretrievable; the intimate facts of everyday life that defined what people were really like."--American Heritage

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1 author picked The Reshaping of Everyday Life as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Jack Larkin, former historian of Old Sturbridge Village, befriended me when I was a research fellow at the Village years ago. He was one of the most generous and original scholars I’ve ever known. Though deeply versed in the primary sources of the Village’s rich research library, Jack’s understanding of the past was richly informed by his immersion in the living history of the Village. He knew the past intimately – how it felt, looked, smelled. For Jack, being “in the room where it happened” had a different meaning: he knew their homes, barns, workshops, meetinghouses. He married this rich…

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