The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America

by John E. Crowley

How did our modern ideas of physical well-being originate? As John Crowley demonstrates in The Invention of Comfort, changes in sensible technology owed a great deal to fashion-conscious elites discovering dis comfort in surroundings they earlier had felt to be satisfactory. Written in an engaging style that will appeal to historians and material culture specialists as well as to general readers, this pathbreaking work brings together such disparate topics of analysis as climate, fire, food, clothing, the senses, and anxiety―especially about the night.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Architecture

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched and written history of material culture -- around the physical experience of "comfort" -- in Britain and Early America in the 1700s and time leading up to that. In addition to this being of interest to historians, literary scholars of that time period also are a likely audience.

And, if you're like me and enjoy facts and analysis about some aspect of human history that you think is cool but you haven't come across in your reading, you'll like this too. It may even be a great book for authors who are setting a story or novel in this time period and want to understand how British or new American people lived.