The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life [Six Volumes] A Tour through History from Ancient Times to the Present

Everyday life consists of the little things one hardly notices in time and space...through the details, a society stands revealed
The way people eat, or lodge at the different levels of that society are never a matter of indifference.


--Fernand Braudel, The Structure of Everyday Life (New Yorker: Harper and Row, 1979), 29

Subjects:

• History » World History (General)
• History » American History (General)
• Multicultural Studies » Multicultural Studies (General)

Related Web Pages:

• dailylife.greenwood.com
• http://dailylife.greenwood.com/teacher/

Awards:

• Reference Reviews Top Ten Printed Reference Source
• CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles, 2005
• Core Collection: YA Reference Sources Booklist 2005
• Library Journal Best Reference Sources 2004
• Booklist 2004 Editors' Choice
• 2004 New York Public Library Best of Reference

Reviews:

• A carefully crafted encyclopedia designed for those without a background in cultural history....recommended for high school and undergraduate libraries, as well as public libraries.
  —Library Journal August 2004
• 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 May 2005
• [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 April 2005
• [E]specially for high school, undergraduate, and large public libraries.
  —Reference & User Services Quarterly Spring 2005
• [W]ill serve high school, public and undergraduate libraries.
  —Gale Lawrence Looks an Books February 2005
• Starred Review [O]utstanding in-depth, unique historical information. Highly Recommended.
  —Library Media Connection January 2005
• 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 November 2004
• Starred Review. 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/Reference Books Bulletin September 1, 2004

• Endorsement From Peter N. Stearns
  Provost, George Mason University
  Editor of The Encyclopedia of European Social History and The Encyclopedia of World History
  Editor, Journal of Social History: 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.

Description: 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. Each volume comprises seven chapters that span the realm of everyday life:

Material Life

Religious Life

Domestic Life

Political Life

Recreational Life

Intellectual Life

Economic Life

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. Helpful research features include:

Historical Overviews

Concept Compasses

Numerous Illustrations and Maps

Chronologies

Sidebars

Primary Documents

"For More Information" Guides

Cumulative Set Index in Each Volume

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, and Volume 6 covers the 20th century.

Volume 1: The Ancient World, Gregory S. Aldrete, Volume Editor
Volume 2: The Medieval World, Joyce E. Salisbury, Volume Editor
Volume 3: 15th and 16th Centuries, Lawrence Morris, Volume Editor
Volume 4: 17th and 18th Centuries, Peter Seelig, Volume Editor
Volume 5: 19th Century, Andrew E. Kersten, Volume Editor
Volume 6: The Modern World, Andrew E. Kersten, Volume Editor

Advisory Board:

Mark C. Carnes
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History
Barnard College

Davíd Carrasco
Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin American Studies
Harvard Divinity School

B.S Chandrababu
Reader In History
Madurai Kamaraj University

Toyin Falola
Frances Higginbothom Nalle Centennial Professor in History
The University of Texas at Austin

Jacqueline Murray
Dean of Arts
University of Guelph

Table of Contents:

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