A Day in the Life

This book offers a guided tour of the current state scholarship on daily life, including the knowledge that generated and suggestions for further research. Edited by Peter N. Stearns, the eminent social historian and Chair of the Advanced Placement World History committee. 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. 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.