Lost Worlds: How Our European Ancestors Coped with Everyday Life and Why Life Is So Hard Today / Edition 1

by Arthur E. Imhof

Overview

Publication of Lost Worlds introduces to English-speaking readers one of the most original and engaging historians in Germany today. Known for his work in historical demography, Arthur E. Imhof here branches out into folklore, religion, anthropology, psychology, and the history of art. Rooted in Imhof's belief that we need stability and values that transcend the individual, Lost Worlds inspires us to examine our own ways of seeing the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813916590
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	09/29/1996
Series:	Studies in Early Modern German History
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	199
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Arthur E. Imhof is Professor of Historical Demography and Social History at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, the Free University of Berlin, and has published a number of widely praised books in German. Thomas Robisheaux is Associate Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of Rural Society and the Quest for Order in Early Modern Germany.

Editorial Reviews

Using frequent shifts of focus and a freewheeling multidisciplinary approach, Swiss-born historian Imhof (In the Gallery of History) mixes European pre-industrial social history with a lament about modern life. Imhof, a professor at the Free University of Berlin, is on the firmest epistemological ground when describing the little world of German peasant Johannes Hooss (1670-1755), using maps and diagrams to bolster discussions of land-holding patterns and marriage options. Imhof argues that Central European peasant families coped with war, famine and plague by trying to achieve stability; they held on to their farms for up to 400 years and repeatedly used the same first names, even for several living siblings. Less convincing are his views on family planning, quality of home life and fear and anxiety, especially when the evidence is artwork from a later period or a reference to traumatic collective memory. As for comparisons with modern times, German peasants may have faced death calmly because of their Christian worldview and expectation of eternal life, but is it true that no one today "can offer any guidance in how to die properly"? Does increased life expectancy really make our lives more interchangeable and monotonous? Imhof's charming style is not enough to persuade readers that they've lost more than they've gained by being born in this century. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Reconstructs the world and daily life of Johannes Hooss, a 17th- century farmer in a remote Hessian village, arguing that his precarious existence built values which transcended individual life and gave him a more stable world view than the one we have now. Explores the various systems that gave meaning to his world, including astrology, the folklore of the seasons, and Christian rituals of baptism, marriage, and death. Originally published in German in 1984 by C. H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Oscar Beck). Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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