Life At Home In The Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors

Download Free (EPUB, PDF)

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century cross-cuts the ranks of important books on social history, consumerism, contemporary culture, the meaning of material culture, domestic architecture, and household ethnoarchaeology. Far richer in information and more incisive than America at Home (Smolan and Erwitt), it also moves well beyond Rick Smolan's Day in the Life series. It is a distant cousin of Material World and Hungry Planet in content and style, but represents a blend of rigorous science and photography that none of these books can claim. Using archaeological approaches to human material culture, this volume offers unprecedented access to the middle-class American home through the kaleidoscopic lens of no-limits photography and many kinds of never-before acquired data about how people actually live their lives at home. Based on a rigorous, nine-year project at UCLA, this book has appeal not only to scientists but also to all people who share intense curiosity about what goes on at home in their neighborhoods. Many who read the book will see their own lives mirrored in these pages and can reflect on how other people cope with their mountains of possessions and other daily challenges. Readers abroad will be equally fascinated by the contrasts between their own kinds of materialism and the typical American experience. The book will interest a range of designers, builders, and architects as well as scholars and students who research various facets of U.S. and global consumerism, cultural history, and economic history.

Hardcover: 180 pages

Publisher: The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press; 1St Edition edition (July 12, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1931745617

ISBN-13: 978-1931745611

Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 0.7 x 9.7 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #220,056 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #27 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Architectural > Houses & Hotels #271 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Photojournalism & Essays > Photo Essays #320 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Customs & Traditions

I'd never thought of the way we live now as finding its place in time by examining our homes, our objects, our selves, as an archeologist would examine a long dead society with limited artifacts. In the book, it says that we came closest to knowing the lives of a past civilization when we found Pompeii. Those people, frozen in motion, had more to tell than any other such dig. But, as the authors say, how much more we could know if we were there as they had moved about their homes, their businesses, picked up objects to use, kept dear thing close and revealed the value placed on some objects. In this respect, it continues to influence me as I make choices daily in my own life, what I treasure, how I go about my daily routine.Then of course, it renders our homes as activity centers, which we know how to talk about from all the HGTV we watch, and about multi-use areas important in small space living. I wonder if the more multi-use areas a home has, does that reveal a lower economic level? with single use areas in the homes of the wealthy expanded like gas to fill a void? I'll think on that a bit too.I did not get this to help me design my home remodel, but it appeals to my need for self awareness. I do not often think of my place in time......but this is so fascinating, it feels like James Michener's novel THE SOURCE, which dug deeper and deeper and layer by layer down with his civilizations, connecting the family Ur to preceding generations.When the book arrived, I laid it bedside, intending to scan the contents that night. Well, I decided to take a peek after I read the Introduction, and then I kept going. It isn't a long book, easily read through. And then it needs to be revisited a bit later on, after you think about it.

Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors Twenty-First-Century Kids, Twenty-First-Century Librarians Financial Aid for Persons with Disabilities and Their Families 2012-2014 (Financial Aid for the Disabled and Their Families) Families in Poverty (Families in the 21st Century, Vol. 1) Financial Aid for Veterans, Military Personnel, and Their Families, 2012-2014 (Financial Aid for Veterans, Military Personnel and Their Dependents) Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage The Art and Practice of Home Visiting: Early Intervention for Children with Special Needs and Their Families Inside Chefs' Fridges, Europe: Top chefs open their home refrigerators A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century Sri Lanka in Pictures (Visual Geography (Twenty-First Century)) Lebanon in Pictures (Visual Geography (Twenty-First Century)) Turkey in Pictures (Visual Geography (Twenty-First Century)) Deeper Learning: How Eight Innovative Public Schools Are Transforming Education in the Twenty-First Century The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century One Out of Three: Immigrant New York in the Twenty-First Century Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century A History of Women's Menstruation from Ancient Greece to the Twenty-First Century: Psychological, Social, Medical, Religious, and Educational Issues Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century Gender and Difference in a Globalizing World: Twenty-First-Century Anthropology When We Fight, We Win: Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World