Colonial Living

Rating:
Summary: Tools, techniques, and customs of the time
Review: ?Colonial Living? is written and illustrated by Edwin Tunis who has written and illustrated several relating books. He also produced a 145 foot mural depicting the ?History if Species.?
This is a nice cross over book for those interested in history, every day life in The Thirteen Colonies, and craft tools.
He gives a good overview as it was intended. However there are no real depths or practicality other than an overview. For example the section on food covers a few pages and shows common cooking and eating utensils, but if you want to know how to use them or how the food is prepared you will need a book that goes more into depth. This is not in all cases there is a good page and a half covering the contents and techniques on brick making. Of course I would not want to make one from the information.
This book is a good starting place for information on Colonial Living. You will notice the absents of an index or of a Bibliography.

Rating:
Summary: Tools, techniques, and customs of the time
Review: ?Colonial Living? is written and illustrated by Edwin Tunis who has written and illustrated several relating books. He also produced a 145 foot mural depicting the ?History if Species.?
This is a nice cross over book for those interested in history, every day life in The Thirteen Colonies, and craft tools.
He gives a good overview as it was intended. However there are no real depths or practicality other than an overview. For example the section on food covers a few pages and shows common cooking and eating utensils, but if you want to know how to use them or how the food is prepared you will need a book that goes more into depth. This is not in all cases there is a good page and a half covering the contents and techniques on brick making. Of course I would not want to make one from the information.
This book is a good starting place for information on Colonial Living. You will notice the absents of an index or of a Bibliography.

Rating:
Summary: For those who can't get to Williamsburg
Review: I first read . . . and re-read . . . and re-re-read this book in the late 1960s after discovering it in my junior high school library. I always wished I had a copy for reference and the sheer joy of seeing Tunis's amazingly detailed drawings and reading his well-researched text. Now, after many years, the book is back in print. I highly recommend it (and its companions Colonial Craftsmen and Frontier Living) to anyone interested in how people lived -- and how different types of work was done -- in 17th and 18th century America.

Rating:
Summary: For those who can't get to Williamsburg
Review: I first read . . . and re-read . . . and re-re-read this book in the late 1960s after discovering it in my junior high school library. I always wished I had a copy for reference and the sheer joy of seeing Tunis's amazingly detailed drawings and reading his well-researched text. Now, after many years, the book is back in print. I highly recommend it (and its companions Colonial Craftsmen and Frontier Living) to anyone interested in how people lived -- and how different types of work was done -- in 17th and 18th century America.

Rating:
Summary: Even adults should read it.
Review: Team this volume with Tunis's "Frontier Living" (though there's a bit of overlap in the time periods covered) and you'll have a good, sound, easily understood social history of the first 280 years of the USA. As always, his illustrations are clear and detailed and his text well written and easy to follow. If, for whatever reason, you can't visit an actual reconstructed Colonial community, having this book on your shelf is the next best thing. (Much of the information in it can probably be carried forward into the early and mid-19th Century, too.) A classic of its type and one we should all be overjoyed to see back in print.

Rating:
Summary: Even adults should read it.
Review: Team this volume with Tunis's "Frontier Living" (though there's a bit of overlap in the time periods covered) and you'll have a good, sound, easily understood social history of the first 280 years of the USA. As always, his illustrations are clear and detailed and his text well written and easy to follow. If, for whatever reason, you can't visit an actual reconstructed Colonial community, having this book on your shelf is the next best thing. (Much of the information in it can probably be carried forward into the early and mid-19th Century, too.) A classic of its type and one we should all be overjoyed to see back in print.