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A review by gillothen
The Domestic Revolution by Ruth Goodman
5.0
This is quite simply superb. Ruth Goodman has spent a long time working on "living archaeology", recreating the methods used by our ancestors to run their homes and small businesses. She knows from practical experience what the differences are between a coal-fuelled household and one relying on wood - and the advantages are not all in the same camp.
She develops a careful argument based on surviving records - inventories, wills, account books - and surviving material goods to explore how and why Britain - starting with London - switched its primary source of domestic fuel from wood to coal in a few short decades at the end of Elizabeth I's reign and that of her successor. She then shows with excellent logic how this change went on to inspire developments in metallurgy - Darby of Coalbrookdale started by making cooking pots - and chemistry, and then became part of the imperialist distribution of British ideas and techniques around the globe. Utterly fascinating, well-argued and full of riveting examples.
She develops a careful argument based on surviving records - inventories, wills, account books - and surviving material goods to explore how and why Britain - starting with London - switched its primary source of domestic fuel from wood to coal in a few short decades at the end of Elizabeth I's reign and that of her successor. She then shows with excellent logic how this change went on to inspire developments in metallurgy - Darby of Coalbrookdale started by making cooking pots - and chemistry, and then became part of the imperialist distribution of British ideas and techniques around the globe. Utterly fascinating, well-argued and full of riveting examples.