A History of Private Life

In the original sense of the term, A History of Private Life is a series of essays: attempts at a new, non-narrative kind of history. Sumptuously illustrated with pictures, maps, and photographs, the book is a feast for the eye; it is fascinating, often compelling in its exquisite details… A kaleidoscopic effect is doubtless part of the authors’ purpose: to question our assumption that we understand the history of Renaissance individualism and make us realize that it is as complicated as the variety of traces left by three centuries of private life. -- Maureen Quilligan * New York Times Book Review *
This is a bold and seductive book… Richly illustrated, with contributions from foremost French historians, it is set fair to become the authoritative history of intimacy in the early modern West. -- Lyndal Roper * Times Higher Education Supplement *
Its broad chronological scope, its remarkable effective integration of essays by different historians, and above all its ability to represent the seemingly frivolous details of private life in a challengingly theoretical matrix make this an important and exciting work for historians of Early Modern Europe. -- Lawrence Wolff * Journal of Social History *
The new emphasis on the history of everybody has now been consecrated in [this] ambitious five-volume series…masterfully translated by Arthur Goldhammer… Copious illustrative materials—paintings, drawings, caricatures, and photographs, all cannily chosen and wittily captioned to display domestic life… Magnificent. -- Roger Shattuck * New York Times Book Review *
Together these five compact volumes cover much of the history of the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority. * Washington Post Book World *