The Way We Are
What Everyday Objects and Conventions Tell Us About Ourselves
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The beloved and bestselling "anthropologist of everyday life" turns her witty and insightful gaze to the oddities of living in our modern world
Over the course of her time as a contributor and editor for Saturday Night magazine—a span during which she published her award-winning book The Rituals of Dinner—Margaret Visser specialized in thought-provoking columns capable of turning the banal into the extraordinary. From high heels to showers to the metamorphosis of Santa Claus, these essays span an eclectic and engrossing range of topics perfect for Visser fans and newcomers alike. With academic rigor and a warm narrative style, she takes commonplace facets of everyday life—crossword puzzles, fireplaces, paid time off—and digs into their peculiar origins and surprising social legacies. In examining some of the most ordinary elements of life, Visser sorts through historical facts and cultural implications to reveal the hidden assumptions behind our modern behavior.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Award-winning Toronto author Visser (Much Depends on Dinner) packs a wealth of intriguing information into this collection of witty essays. All but one of the deceptively short pieces were originally published in Saturday Night magazine and have as their subject matter quite commonplace objects and activities of everyday life. Visser's forte is to take the ordinary and turn it into the extraordinary by providing a cultural history of its evolution (each piece has a bibliography). The practice of showering, for example, was considered dangerous and became habitual only in the last 40 years, after central heating. Until the 1900s, when they established themselves as ``professionals,'' doctors and lawyers accepted tips in the same manner that waiters and hairdressers do today. The concept of paid vacations has its roots in 1920s fascist Italy, where workers were ordered to take time off to exercise their bodies. An insightful volume that will delight both fans and newcomers to Visser's writing.
