“Our domestic Sherlock brims with excitement” (Roger Lowenstein, Wall Street Journal) in this erudite romp through the smoke-stained, coal-fired houses of Victorian England. “The queen of living history” (Lucy Worsley) dazzles anglophiles and history lovers alike with this immersive account of how English women sparked a worldwide revolution—from their own kitchens. Wielding the same wit and passion as seen in How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman shows that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea. As Goodman traces the amazing shift from wood to coal in mid-sixteenth century England, a pattern of innovation emerges as the women stoking these fires also stoked new global industries: from better soap to clean smudges to new ingredients for cooking. Laced with irresistibly charming anecdotes of Goodman’s own experience managing a coal-fired household, The Domestic Revolution shines a hot light on the power of domestic necessity.

'Ruth is the queen of living history - long may she reign.' Lucy Worsley A large black cast iron range glowing hot, the kettle steaming on top, provider of everything from bath water and clean socks to morning tea: it's a nostalgic icon of a Victorian way of life. But it is far more than that. In this book, social historian and TV presenter Ruth Goodman tells the story of how the development of the coal-fired domestic range fundamentally changed not just our domestic comforts, but our world. The revolution began as far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when London began the switch from wood to coal as its domestic fuel - a full 200 years before any other city. It would be this domestic demand for more coal that would lead to the expansion of mining, engineering, construction and industry: the Domestic Revolution kick-started, pushed and fuelled the Industrial Revolution. There were other radical shifts. Coal cooking was to change not just how we cooked but what we cooked (causing major swings in diet), how we washed (first our laundry and then our bodies) and how we decorated (spurring the wallpaper industry). It also defined the nature of women's and men's working lives, pushing women more firmly into the domestic sphere. It transformed our landscape and environment (by the time of Elizabeth's death in 1603, London's air was as polluted as that of modern Beijing). Even tea drinking can be brought back to coal in the home, with all its ramifications for the shape of the empire and modern world economics. Taken together, these shifts in our day-to-day practices started something big, something unprecedented, something that was exported across the globe and helped create the world we live in today.

TRAVEL BACK IN TIME WITH THE BBC'S RUTH GOODMAN We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner - like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Catch the omnibus to work and do the laundry in your corset? How to be a Victorian is a radical new approach to history; a journey back in time more personal than anything before, illuminating the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work and play. Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living and this book will show you how. ______________________ 'Goodman skilfully creates a portrait of daily Victorian life with accessible, compelling, and deeply sensory prose' Erin Entrada Kelly 'We're lucky to have such a knowledgeable cicerone as Ruth Goodman . . . Revelatory' Alexandra Kimball 'Goodman's research is impeccable . . . taking the reader through an average day and presenting the oddities of life without condescension' Patricia Hagen

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice Selection An erudite romp through the intimate details of life in Tudor England, "Goodman's latest…is a revelation" (New York Times Book Review). On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. A celebrated master of British social and domestic history, Ruth Goodman draws on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions to serve as our intrepid guide to sixteenth-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this “immersive, engrossing” (Slate) work pays tribute to the lives of those who labored through the era. From using soot from candle wax as toothpaste to malting grain for homemade ale, from the gruesome sport of bear-baiting to cuckolding and cross-dressing—the madcap habits and revealing intimacies of life in the time of Shakespeare are vividly rendered for the insatiably curious.

“Easily the most thorough and best-grounded account of the coal-based system of heating in the nineteenth-century United States . . . authoritative.” —The New England Quarterly Home Fires tells the fascinating story of how changes in home heating over the nineteenth century spurred the growth of networks that helped remake American society. Sean Patrick Adams reconstructs the ways in which the “industrial hearth” appeared in American cities, the methods that entrepreneurs in home heating markets used to convince consumers that their product designs and fuel choices were superior, and how elite, middle-class, and poor Americans responded to these overtures. Adams depicts the problem of dwindling supplies of firewood and the search for alternatives; the hazards of cutting, digging, and drilling in the name of home heating; the trouble and expense of moving materials from place to place; the rise of steam power; the growth of an industrial economy; and questions of economic efficiency, at both the individual household and the regional level. Home Fires makes it clear that debates over energy sources, energy policy, and company profit margins have been around a long time. The challenge of staying warm in the industrializing North becomes a window into the complex world of energy transitions, economic change, and emerging consumerism. Readers will understand the struggles of urban families as they sought to adapt to the ever-changing nineteenth-century industrial landscape. This perspective allows a unique view of the development of an industrial society not just from the ground up but from the hearth up. “This smartly written and well-informed book focuses on a subject that very few people think about—the history of home heating in America.” —Choice

The Industrial Revolution provided the greatest increase in living standards the world has ever known while propelling Britain to dominance on the global stage. In Forging Modernity, Martin Hutchinson looks at how and why Britain gained this prize ahead of its European competitors. After comparing their endowments and political structures as far back as 1600, he then traces how Britain, through better policies primarily from the political Tory party, diverged from other European countries. Hutchinson's Harvard MBA allows a unique perspective on the early industrial enterprises - many successes resulted from marketing, control systems and logistics rather than from production technology alone, while on a national scale the scientific method and commercial competition were as important as physical infrastructure. By 1830, through ever-improving policies, Britain had built a staggering industrial lead, half a century ahead of its rivals. Then the Tories lost power and policy changed forever. In his conclusion, Hutchinson shows how changes welcomed by conventional historians caused the decline of Industrial Britain. Nevertheless, the policies that drove growth, ingenuity and rising living standards are still available for those bold enough to adopt them.

!--StartFragment-- Follow-up to the hit BBC series Victorian Farm Victorian Farm sold over 40,000 copies (Nielsen Bookscan figures) Includes projects and recipes to try at home Following on from the hit BBC series Victorian Farm, this book accompanies a new 12-part BBC series. This time, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn take a leap forward in time to immerse themselves in an Edwardian community in the West Country. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Morwellham Quay was situated in a bustling and commercially prosperous region – a stunning rural landscape encompassing rolling farmland, wild moorland, tidal river, coast and forest, which supported a vibrant and diverse economy. Ruth, Peter and Alex will spend a year exploring all aspects of this working landscape - restoring boats, buildings and equipment, cultivating crops, fishing, rearing animals and rediscovering the lost heritage of this fascinating era as well as facing the challenges of increasingly commercial farming practices, fishing and community events. !--StartFragment--!--EndFragment--!--EndFragment--