The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life [6 volumes]: A Tour through History from Ancient Times to the Present

by Gregory S. Aldrete, Lawrence Morris, Joyce E. Salisbury, Peter Seelig, Andrew E. Kersten

Overview

We build our lives on essential but seemingly mundane things: Food, Shelter, Families, Neighbors, Work, and Play. The unremembered details of people's everyday struggles and successes have shaped history and continue to drive the world we know. This exciting new resouce offers an unprecedented look at human history's living heart: the billions of anonymous men and women often forgotten by historical studies, but without whose lives human history would be meaningless. Perfect for general readers and students of world history, U.S. history, literature, drama, social studies, anthropology, religion, and more, this award-winning resource offers an unprecedented look at how people lived, ate, dressed, worshipped, toiled, played, married and died, and much much more. Organized by timeframe (each volume covers a finite period) and then by topic (Historical Overview,then Domestic, Economic,Intellectual, Material, Political, Recreational, and Religious Life, followed by primary sources), this set will meet the needs of a vast perecentage of library patrons for both curricular studies as well as personal interest areas.

Our lives are built on essential but mundane things: food, shelter, families, neighbors, work, and play. Our activities rarely rise to headline-making greatness, and the same holds true for the majority of people throughout history. Yet it's the unremembered details of people's everyday struggles and successes that have shaped history and continue to drive the world we know. Based in part on Greenwood's award-winning Daily Life through History series, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life offers an unprecedented look at human history's living heart: the billions of anonymous man and women too often forgotten by historical studies, but without whose lives human history would be meaningless. Providing unparalleled breadth and depth, this six-volume set is organized both thematically and chronologically.

Panoramic overview articles show the full range and interconnections of everyday life throughout history. General topics are then broken into component parts, each of which is explored in detailed essays. The chronological and thematic organizations, aided by concept compasses that graphically show interconnections and act as visual navigational cues, reflect how students really learn. All regions of the world are covered at various points in their histories.

Volume 1 examines the ancient world, from the beginnings of civilization in 3,500 B.C.E. through the Roman Empire in 400 C.E. Volume 2 covers from 400 to 1400 C.E.
Volume 3 explores the 15th and 16th centuries
Volume 4 looks at the 17th and 18th centuries
Volume 5 examines the 19th century
Volume 6 covers the 20th century

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313325410
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/30/2004
Pages:	2500
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 11.80(h) x 13.60(d)

About the Author

Joyce E. Salisbury is Frankenthal Professor of History at University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. She has a PhD in Medieval History from Rutgers University. Professor Salisbury is an award-winning teacher. She was named CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Professor of the Year for Wisconsin in 1991, and has brought her concern for pedagogy to this Encyclopedia. Professor Salisbury has written or edited more than ten books, including the award-winning Perpetua's Passion: Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World, and The West in the World, a successful Western Civilization textbook.

Gregory S. Aldrete is associate professor of history and humanistic studies at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and his PhD from the University of Michigan. His publications include Gestures and Communications in Ancient Rome (1999), as well as book chapters on Ancient Rome's food supply and on daily life in Pompeii. Currently he is writing a book on floods in Ancient Rome.

Lawrence Morris recieved his PhD from Harvard University in 2001, and has taught English literature and history at a variety of institutions including Harvard, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and Fitzwilliam College (Cambridge University). He has recieved a number of academic awards and fellowships, including a Packard Fellowship and a Frank Knox Memorial Traveling Fellowship. Morris is currently writing about the relationship between truth and literary fiction in the religious writing of the medieval British Isles.

Peter Seelig is an independent scholar with a Bachelor's Degree in the humanities from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, and continues to study topics in history, language, and philosophy. Following a year spent teaching in France, he has been working as a university-level logic tutor and proofreader in Madison, Wisconsin. He is also a freelance editor and an author of educational supplements.

Andrew E. Kersten received his BA in history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his MA and PhD at University of Cincinnati. Since 1997 he has taught in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Kersten has published in the Queen City Heritage, The Michigan Historical Review, and The Missouri Historical Review, has contributed to several anthologies and encyclopedias, and is author of Race, Jobs and the War: The FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-1946 and the co-editor of Politics and Progress: The State and American Society since 1865 (Greenwood, 2001). Currently he is writing a history of the American Federation of Labor during World War II.

Table of Contents

Preface
Historical Overview
Domestic Life
Economic Life
Intellectual Life
Material Life
Political Life
Recreational Life
Religious Life
Primary Sources
Index

What People are Saying About This

Peter N. Stearns Provost

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life  is an ambitious and timely project. The coverage is admirably comprehensive in terms of major features of daily life, chronology, and geography. Understanding the history of daily life, and how this history improves our grasp on the past and on the role of the past in shaping daily life today, constitutes one of the real frontiers in historical scholarship over the past two decades. The Encyclopedia builds on the huge improvements in knowledge, and makes them available to a wide public and student audience. What's additionally impressive is the extent to which entries not only provide data, but also encourage analysis through comparisons of different societies around the same daily life feature, and through comparison of different time periods as an entry to dealing with major changes and continuities.

Peter N. Stearns: Provost

^IThe Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life^R is an ambitious and timely project. The coverage is admirably comprehensive in terms of major features of daily life, chronology, and geography. Understanding the history of daily life, and how this history improves our grasp on the past and on the role of the past in shaping daily life today, constitutes one of the real frontiers in historical scholarship over the past two decades. The ^IEncyclopedia^R builds on the huge improvements in knowledge, and makes them available to a wide public and student audience. What's additionally impressive is the extent to which entries not only provide data, but also encourage analysis through comparisons of different societies around the same daily life feature, and through comparison of different time periods as an entry to dealing with major changes and continuities.

Editorial Reviews

Greenwood is to be applauded for this set's unique organization, which offers, instead of a contrived alphabetical arrangement, a thematic one that better fits the unique, complex subject material and helps readers navigate across topics, time periods, and cultures; the approach enhances ease of use and encourages comparative study. Entries are written for readers with no previous knowledge; they are relatively succinct, highly readable, and authoritative. Billed as a tour through history, the contents live up to this adventurous subtitle. Libraries that own monographs in Greenwood's Daily Life through History series will find this encyclopedia an expanded and important adjunct. Highly recommended. Students and teachers of history at secondary and early undergraduate levels.” —Choice

“A carefully crafted encyclopedia designed for those without a background in cultural history. . . . [R]ecommended for high school and undergraduate libraries, as well as public libraries.” —Library Jourbanal

“[A]n ambitious and almost entirely successful project . . . a first-class tool for the non-specialist and [it] would make a very useful addition to the school, college or public library.” —Reference Reviews

“[E]specially for high school, undergraduate, and large public libraries.” —Reference & User Services Quarterly

“[W]ill serve high school, public and undergraduate libraries.” —Gale Lawrence Looks an Books

“[O]utstanding in-depth, unique historical information. Highly Recommended.” —Library Media Connection

“Given its concentration on daily life issues and the fact that it attemps to cover such a broad swath of human history, the Greenwood Ecyclopedia of Daily Life is a unique reference. It is particularly appropriate for high school students and lower division undergraduates in search of background information….[w]ill prove very useful for writing short papers and getting started on longer projects. Many public, high school and college libraries will want to add this set to their collections.” —Against the Grain

“This ambitious and accessible resource provides an amazingly organized overview of the minutia that has shaped everyday life from antiquity through the present day….Daily Life provides a level of detail and ease that users will appreciate. Whether using the print or the online version, researchers can find in-depth information about a specific civilization, follow the development of particular social phenomena through history, or dip in for ready-reference-type facts and statistics. . . . [I]ts structure facilitates cross-cultural comparisons, and the online version greatly expands the content base. Greenwood Daily Life Online and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life are highly recommended for high-school, academic, and large public libraries. Special pricing is available for combination purchases.” —Booklist, Starred Review

From the Publisher

This ambitious and accessible resource provides an amazingly organized overview of the minutia that has shaped everyday life from antiquity through the present day....Daily Life provides a level of detail and ease that users will appreciate. Whether using the print or the online version, researchers can find in-depth information about a specific civilization, follow the development of particular social phenomena through history, or dip in for ready-reference-type facts and statistics....It's structure facilitates cross-cultural comparisons, and the online version greatly expands the content base. Greenwood Daily Life Online and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life are highly recommended for high-school, academic, and large public libraries. Special pricing is available for combination purchases.

Booklist

Salisbury (history, Univ. of Wisconsin), the author of Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World and other titles on culture in history, has edited a carefully crafted encyclopedia designed for those without a background in cultural history. Based on Greenwood's "Daily Life Through History" series, the work provides an overview of the material, domestic, recreational, religious, political, intellectual, and economic aspects of daily life in a selection of cultures from six broad historical periods: the ancient world, the medieval world, the 15th and 16th centuries, the 17th and 18th centuries, the 19th century, and the modern world. Each of the six volumes gives a survey of the historical period in each culture covered, which is representative rather than exhaustive, then covers aspects of daily life from broad topics to narrower. Bottom Line Although some primary documents are included and recommended readings are listed, the work is not intended as a research guide for advanced students of culture. It is, however, useful for students and is thus recommended for high school and undergraduate libraries, as well as public libraries where there is an interest in the "Daily Life" series. [See also the review of Greenwood Daily Life Online, p. 28ff. Ed.] Rosanne M. Cordell, Indiana Univ. Lib., South Bend Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal