The Making of Home

Judith Flanders takes a fascinating look at the history of the home in the cultures of Northern Europe & the United States in The Making of Home.  She picks those regions out for the focus of her study because the languages spoken there have words for both house & home and because those areas were instrumental in the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism.  The author examines what dwellings looked like and how people used and related to them over the course of the past 500 years tracing changes in space & utilization as well as changes in the roles of the people living in them.

All in all this was an interesting book that I’d recommend to anyone with an interest in the day to day life in the past.