A million years in a day : a curious history of everyday life from the Stone Age to the phone age

A million years in a day A curious history of everyday life from the Stone Age to the phone age

Greg Jenner

Book - 2016

"Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old.Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted. In this gloriously entertaining romp through human history, Greg Jenner explores the gradual and often unexpected evolution of our daily routines. This is not a story of politics, wars, or great events. Instead, Jenner has scoured Roman rubbish bins, Egyptian tombs, and ...Victorian sewers to bring us the most intriguing, surprising, and sometimes downright silly nuggets from our past.Drawn from across the world, spanning a million years of humanity, this book is a smorgasbord of historical delights. It is a history of all those things you always wondered - and many you have never considered. It is the story of your life, one million years in the making"--

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Subjects
Manners and customs > History.
Civilization > History.
Published
New York, N.Y. : Thomas Dunne Books 2016.
Language
English
Main Author
Greg Jenner (author)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Physical Description
xi, 356 pages ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 342-347) and index.
ISBN
9781250089441
  • 9.30 a.m. Rise and shine
  • 9.45 a.m. Answering the call of nature
  • 10 a.m. A spot of breakfast
  • 10.45 a.m. Jumping in the shower
  • 11.15 a.m. Walking the dog
  • 12 p.m. Keeping in touch
  • 6 p.m. Picking an outfit
  • 7 p.m. A champagne aperitif
  • 7.45 p.m. Dinner
  • 9.30 p.m. Drinks
  • 11.45 p.m. Brushing our teeth
  • 11.53 p.m. Getting into bed
  • 11.59 p.m. Setting the alarm clock.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Jenner, a cowriter of the BBC's Horrible Histories series, muses about the historical antecedents of activities on a typical British Saturday in this entertaining work. He begins his day at 9:30 a.m. and proceeds to consider humans' historical and varied methods of dividing time, setting the pattern for succeeding chapters. Over the course of the day, Jenner reflects on the keeping of pets, human communication technologies, clothing, alcohol, dining, and even tooth-brushing. His extensive coverage of bodily functions in the chapter on "Answering the Call of Nature" may be a bit much for some readers, but he shows that humans have done some fairly gross things in our past (see the section on bathing, for instance). The fact-checking isn't always flawless-for instance, Jenner credits Charles Wesley with the first utterance of "Cleanliness is next to godliness" rather than his brother John-but this is a fun book, not a scholarly tome. His sources are also overwhelmingly Eurocentric, though he does include some references to Asia and the Americas. Jenner's book is an amusing examination of what we humans do with ourselves all day. Agent: Donald Winchester, Watson Little (U.K.). (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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