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The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death
by
Jill Lepore
Renowned Harvard scholar and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has composed a strikingly original, ingeniously conceived, and beautifully crafted history of American ideas about life and death from before the cradle to beyond the grave.
How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of...more
How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
June 5th 2012
by Knopf
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Ms Lepore has done it again. Brilliant essays on various and changing views of life and death in modern, and not so modern America. Is life a circle or is it linear? Since the advent of electric lighting and subsequent change from agrarian to urban lifestyles, American psychic life has changed utterly. Our sense and understanding of living and dying changed in ways few of us appreciate: from board games to breast pumps, the way we look at cemeteries, how we view life expectancy, even our politic...more
Prince Hamlet's observation that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" might aptly summarize Jill Lepore's collection of wide-ranging essays on ideas about life and death. And since perhaps no country other than America has produced weirder fancies on those two phenomena, Lepore provides a hilarious and witty historical tour of same, from Milton Bradley's 1860 board game, "The Checkered Game of Life" (it didn't include Boardwalk but it did feature a game-ending space cal...more
Because the chapters of this book began life as essays in The New Yorker magazine, they are somewhat loosely strung together and feel as though they could stand on their own, should you wish to delve into an individual topic. The author, a professor of American History at Harvard, has a broad overarching theme of the changing attitudes toward the life cycle in American culture. Her skill in pulling together disparate incidents and ideas works well, so the book is consistently interesting and ent...more
Aug 03, 2012
Converse
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
history,
non-fiction
This book by the Harvard historian Jill Lepore is collection of loosely linked essays, many originally published in the New Yorker focusing on the big questions of life generally as reflected in the domestic sphere. The subjects include conception, sex, marriage counseling, breast feeding, the invention of the idea of adolescence, children's literature, parenting, home economics, old age, and cryogenics. The events and ideas discussed range from about the 17th century to the 21st, but are mostly...more
An odd book. It was not what I expected. It read like separate essays on the histories of widely disparate (though sometimes related) topics: nursing, eugenics, sex education, children's books and libraries, marital advice, parenting advice, cryogenics and Life the board game. There are others.They all touch on a "time" of life--or on ideas about those times--but so does everything, after all. That is not necessarily a criticism. I can imagine essays on a child's first experience of death, a per...more
A really interesting and fascinating book. In every chapter Lepore writes about the evolution of American thought on the only subjects that matter Life and Death. From the game of Life to breast feeding in the workplace to the development of sex education manuals and finally cryogenics Lepore touches in a wide range of topics. I can honestly say I learned something or many things in every chapter. Erudite and witty, Lepore writes very well and her research is prodigious and well footnoted for sc...more
The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore is a collection of loosely-connected essays exploring The Meaning of Life (capital “T”, capital “M”, capital “L”). It turns out that the answer to this grand, existential question frequently turns on the unexpected and, often, the seemingly prosaic. To wit: photography and political calculus did far, far more to create the “right to life” movement than organized religion (especially protestant Christians).
Instead of trying to answer the question of the me...more
Instead of trying to answer the question of the me...more
Rather than a comprehensive history, Lepore tackles the different stages of life--and how America has conceptualized, fantasized, and fought over them--through anecdotal stories and engaging, offbeat characters. Much of her research and storytelling is centered around the major shifts in American attitudes and values as a result of the Progressive Era, a period (I greatly paraphrase) concerned with improving the quality of human life through the widespread adoption of science and technology into...more
Taking as a framing device the Milton Bradley game Life's evolution from Victorian morality play to 1950s consumer grab, Lepore examines the stages of life in vivid, short chapters illustrating the rapid and widely shifting ways Americans have come to view what is expected out of a lifetime. Among the telling ideas are the political battles over breastfeeding (should the IRS allow a breast pump as a deduction?), how the woman who invented children's rooms in public libraries also tried to block...more
The best way to describe what this book is about is that it is a history of hokum, quackery, crackpots charlatans and chuckleheads as framed by the stages of life and death as refracted through a board game created in 1860 called the Checkered Game of Life. We know this game more by it's 100th anniversary reworking as the game Life.
through this we are treated to essays about eugenics, forced steralizations of the mentally impaired, cryonics, the creation of the Children's Library, how the unders...more
through this we are treated to essays about eugenics, forced steralizations of the mentally impaired, cryonics, the creation of the Children's Library, how the unders...more
Jun 12, 2012
Susan
marked it as to-read
Not sure........ from EW (grade: A) (June 15, 2012): "Named after the Victorian-era board game that inspired Milton Bradley's LIFE, this fascinating book explores a few centuries' worth of ideas about life and death -- you know, just a light beach read. But for all its analysis of Darwin and Aristotle, it's a lot of fun. Riffing on everything from breast pumps to cryogenics, New Yorker writer Lepore shows how our concepts of birth, youth, middle age, and old age have changed with cultural shifts...more
This was a thought-provoking read. Not all of the chapters, many of which had been essays written for the New Yorker, were equally of interest to me, but the overall theme of the birth of ideas was very interesting. Things that we take for granted as givens, like the idea of adolescence as a stage of life-it's good to be reminded that those ideas had a beginning, sometimes strange ones with unlikely (and sometimes really horrible) folks promoting them. Even the people who were proponents of the...more
The chapters in this collection of historical essays are all ostensibly about changing conceptions of 'the journey of life' in American culture over the last three centuries. I say ostensibly because many started out as free-standing essays. Virtually all the topics of the individual chapters are personally and idiosyncratically relevant to Lepore's biography (some quite poignantly so), as she explains in her epilogue - titled, in keeping with the book's birth to death structure, 'Last Words'. T...more
This book is a rather meandering look at various life stages viewed through a particular perspective of American culture. While several of the passages were interesting, I had to remind myself many times what the topic of the book was, because the various stories didn't really fit together. For example, the section on childhood was primarily about the development of children's libraries and literature, which didn't really address how the concept of childhood has changed in America over time. At...more
While I found this book a relatively engaging, quick read, especially for non-fiction, I agree with the other reviewers that Mansion of Happiness is meandering, and not in a good way. By the time I had finished reading the dust cover insert, introduction and first chapter, I already had the impression that I was reading essays on miscellaneous topics Jill Lepore found interesting that she then attempted to tweak to fit a theme so that they could be published in a book. Lo and behold, in the "Las...more
if you read & enjoy jill lepore's contributions to "the new yorker," you will probably like this book. it's a collection of essays (some of them reprinted from "the new yorker") on the topic of life & death, & those terms are rather broadly defined. there's a profile of milton bradley, the board game magnate who invented "the game of life" by ripping off a whole bunch of other similar games designed to impart moral caution to children. there is a profile of a weird old dude who runs...more
Lepore's abstract concept for a book is admirable: How Americans have viewed life and death over the centuries. The execution is disjointed. I felt bombarded by controversial topics, like eugenics, abortion, cryogenics, sexism, racism... its like Lepore is trying too hard to win a Pulitzer or something. Humanity's relationship with raising children, success, and mortality has changed over time, and I enjoyed learning about it from a historian's perspective. The most interesting topic (the chapte...more
The Mansion of Happiness is a collection of Jill Lepore's essays on life and death (as the cover says). The essays are loosely related, but generally use one illustrative example (like, the board game from which the book derives it's title) to use as an aperture into how American views on life and death have changed over the past 150 years. The essays can be a little disjointed from one another, but I particularly found the ones on birth control and the right to life movement fascinating, as wel...more
Jill Lepore writes a fascinating, well-researched history of ideas and society. The best essays keep a close focus on the people moving the ideas forward--Milton Bradley, Margaret Sanger, Anne Carroll Moore, and Clara Savage Littledale to name a few. The exploration of ideas becomes less compelling as they become less grounded in storytelling. Some chapters verge on being tedious as they feel more like erudite vignettes tied together by strings and theme rather than events or chronology. It's ce...more
I really don't know how this book got published. The topics were all over the place and did not form a cohesive whole. I still can't tell you what the point of the book was. In fact, the introduction was so bad, it was painful. I really should have given up on the book there. But, no, I soon found out that it the rest of the book was even worse. For example, the chapter supposedly about motherhood focused on Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and is full of historical inaccuraci...more
Renowned Harvard scholar and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has composed a strikingly original, ingeniously conceived, and beautifully crafted history of American ideas about life and death from before the cradle to beyond the grave.
How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of ideas about life and death has to be, like this book, a history of curiosity.” Lepore starts that history with the story of a...more
How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of ideas about life and death has to be, like this book, a history of curiosity.” Lepore starts that history with the story of a...more
INTERESTING ESSAYS.
“He [Scottish biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, c. 1923] imagined a future in which a third of all children would be conceived and incubated in glass jars.”—page 51
Often, while reading ‘The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death’, by Jill Lepore—a collection of essays looking at the sociological attitudes toward life and death over the centuries—I was struck with the distinct feeling that I was reading the voice-over narrative of a PBS documentary. That’s not a bad thing,...more
“He [Scottish biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, c. 1923] imagined a future in which a third of all children would be conceived and incubated in glass jars.”—page 51
Often, while reading ‘The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death’, by Jill Lepore—a collection of essays looking at the sociological attitudes toward life and death over the centuries—I was struck with the distinct feeling that I was reading the voice-over narrative of a PBS documentary. That’s not a bad thing,...more
Lepore certainly has a unique and creative style of history writing. She weaves the story line of her essay together with historical context in an interesting way. I enjoyed how she framed the book as short stories relating to sections of life experience. While the novelty of the style drew me in initially, ultimately I wasn't able to sustain interest when the historical anecdotes wandered away from the topic of her essay. Worth reading if you are interested in unusual writing styles.
This is such a weird, scattered, fun, crazy book. It's different from most things I read - it's a "history" book, so to speak - but it's a history book that traces the natural life of objects and thoughts, rather than wars and power struggles. And it's sooo weird! When it talks about eggs, Lepore riffs on subjects as diverse as LIFE magazine to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to Darwin's theory of evolution. It more than a little reminded me of Sebald's style. Totally crazy, totally awesome.
The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore is a wonderful little book of essays on different stages life from conception to death.
But, as the book unfolded, I became overwhelmed with its political agenda. If your favorite conspiracy theory to explain the political problems of the last 50 years (in the US) is the Nixon Southern Strategy, then this is the book for you.
For more see: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2013/0...
But, as the book unfolded, I became overwhelmed with its political agenda. If your favorite conspiracy theory to explain the political problems of the last 50 years (in the US) is the Nixon Southern Strategy, then this is the book for you.
For more see: http://1book42day.blogspot.com/2013/0...
This is the first Jill Lepore book I've read. I highly recommend it to those who love books that are about 'everything.' Broad themes and funny footnotes of history are woven into a fascinating collection of articles on social and cultural topics concerning life and death. Cryogenics, birth control, the Game of Life from Milton Bradley, the founding of Parents magazine, the development of management science and ergonomics, the list of cool topics goes on. I am happy to have come to the end so I...more
This book is a super-interesting conglomeration of facts about the culture of life and death in America. Lepore has done extensive research, and by bringing various historical events and people together, and comparing them side-by-side against the backdrop of American culture, she paints a truly intriguing picture of life in this country. Each chapter explores a different stage in a human life, from conception to death. The first two chapters were absolutely phenomenal, which I think is why I on...more
A Modern day Renaissance work, "The Mansion of Happiness" offers an outstanding reflection on the concepts of life and death in 19th and 20th century America. Trained as a Historian, Jill Lepore is also a historian of science, an anthropologist, and so much more. Effortlessly bridging the divide between "academic" and general public writing, Lepore produced a work of scholarship accessible to all educated audiences. Highly recommended.
Jill Lepore is a brilliant writer who brings together many stories and factual resources as she explores the history of our attitudes toward the origins of life, what happens after death, and what it all means. Despite the serious subject, she manages to entertain as well as enlighten the reader. She has also done more research for a single chapter than most authors do for an entire book. I highly recommend the book.
Yes, it meanders, but so do great conversations with intelligent people. If you can accept that it's not a linear history, then you'll love it. Once I realized (and accepted) that the book was a history of ideas, informed by a writer with a sense of humour, then I was able to read it without judging the somewhat loose structure. Fascinating stuff.
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JILL LEPORE is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her landmark biography of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister will be published in 2013. Her previous books include The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death (Knopf, 2012); The Whites of...more
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Oct 01, 2012 02:42pm