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Children's encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Material culture. Miscellanea. Juvenile literature.
Encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Material culture. Miscellanea.
A highlight-reel history of shoes, skates, toilets, toothbrushes, and other common household items.In a breezy style reflective of this Czech import's slapdash approach, Sekaninová offers a mix of basic facts, debatable factoids ("The first ever double bed was made in Ancient Rome"), and not-so-buried assumptions: "But what did the first perfume look like? And who was the first woman to use it?" Not to mention a Eurocentric focus that only rarely widens to include other cultures or continents, and outright errors like a shoutout to eyeglass-lens maker "Alexander Spinosa" (actually Alessandro della Spina, who's not definitively their inventor) and a present-tense reference to an 18-karat-gold toilet that hasn't actually been available to view (and use!) in New York's Guggenheim Museum for a few years. Except that everyone in her human cast, from prehistoric squatters on, has pale skin, ChupÃková does better with galleries of small but exactly detailed images of archaeological artifacts, dolls, umbrellas, related inventions like zippers and coat hangers that expand the general scope beyond the main 11 items, and historical costume (mostly European) of diverse eras. Surveys of inventions are hardly rare, but by sticking to the everyday, this is worth note as a natural companion to more technology-oriented flyovers. There is not a bibliography or even any scrap of sourcing to indicate where Sekaninová found her information. (This book was reviewed digitally.)Has a certain appeal for its art and premise, but it's sloppy in both research and assumptions. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Have you ever had the splinteriest of all splinters stuck in your foot? Ouch, owie ... If you have, then you know it hurts like hell. Just take a stroll around the garden as you are - with bare feet. Picture it: dewy grass, the rising sun. One wants to enjoy the nature with all their senses but oh, oh! Their pampered feet immediately start protesting: "Help! What are you doing to us, you silly little human? The pebbles are sharp, the twigs prickly, and the grass tickles. Put on your shoes, right now! Phew, what a relief. Hail to the genius who in¬vented shoes." Well, yeah, but who was it? And what's the story of shoes, anyway?
The first shoe makers
Which material was used to make shoes in prehistoric times? That's a no-brainer! Some bast fibre, bamboo, or palm leaves were more than enough to sew a pair of sandals. If you wanted sturdier footwear, you needed leather or fur.
Why bears, exactly?
The soles of some prehistoric shoes were made from bearskin. Why bear skin when it's thinner than cowhide and lets more water through? The answer is simple. Our ancestors believed that bear skin would give them the strength of this feared animal and protect them.
The Ice Age is coming
Even our prehistoric ancestors used to wear shoes. That's because back then, they travelled from the warm Africa all the way up North. Unaccustomed to the cold, they immediately went about inventing clothing which would allow them to survive the local winter. And since freezing weather didn't do any good to one's feet, either, they came up with the first shoes to wear with their coats. The first "shoes" ever found were made in the Stone Age and boast the impressive 7800 years of age.
Keep an eye on my shoes
Prehistoric times were followed by the antiquity - and by masters of the shoemaking craft as well. These men could weave sandals from tiny strips, but also sew hard low shoes or rainproof high boots. In Egypt, the job was pretty easy since the arid hot climate required simple shoes - leather sandals that looked like the flip-flops we love today. They were worn mostly by rich men, and also the Pharaoh. When the Pharaoh grew tired of wearing shoes, he entrusted them to one of his servants, a so-called sandal-bearer.
Excerpted from Encyclopedia of Ordinary Things by Stepanka Sekaninova
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Who said ordinariness is boring? This book shows ordinary things, along with their origins and inventors, in a new light. Come explore their secrets! They're all around us. We use them daily, pass them by, and it never occurs to us to stop and think about where they came from. What, you ask? The most ordinary things in the world, of course! Shoes, umbrellas, toothbrushes, toothpicks, socks, dolls, and so on and so forth. How did they come to be? Who invented them, how did they develop and change over time? If you'd like to know the answer to these questions, to peek behind the curtain that drapes the most ordinary stuff in mystery, then definitely read on and learn the story of common things.