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reading (Daily Life In Victorian England)
Jan. 3rd, 2011 08:17 pmI finished reading "Daily Life in Victorian England" yesterday evening. This book is just packed with facts. There is some repetition, but I think it was appropriate considering how the sections were divided up. Some things belonged in multiple places.
I think the sections could have been laid out better in the first part of the book. Mitchell explores topics with a lot of class stratification by topic. Within a given section you'll have seven version of reality for people of different social standing or gender, then move on to the next topic and repeat the stratification. I found it hard to get a clear picture for any social group because there was so much information mixed in. The latter parts of the book cover more general social factors and don't suffer the same information overload.
Overall, the detail is at a readable level. There are a few places where Mitchell would have been served by saying, "I can't get into the details of this topic because it's a study in itself" rather than try to reduce too much to one paragraph. But still, to cover the scope that this book covers in less than 300 pages and still even be moderately coherent is a feat.
1. Sally Mitchell "Daily Life in Victorian England"
I think the sections could have been laid out better in the first part of the book. Mitchell explores topics with a lot of class stratification by topic. Within a given section you'll have seven version of reality for people of different social standing or gender, then move on to the next topic and repeat the stratification. I found it hard to get a clear picture for any social group because there was so much information mixed in. The latter parts of the book cover more general social factors and don't suffer the same information overload.
Overall, the detail is at a readable level. There are a few places where Mitchell would have been served by saying, "I can't get into the details of this topic because it's a study in itself" rather than try to reduce too much to one paragraph. But still, to cover the scope that this book covers in less than 300 pages and still even be moderately coherent is a feat.
1. Sally Mitchell "Daily Life in Victorian England"
