The Making of Home: The 500-year story of how our houses became homes

by Judith Flanders

The idea that 'home' is a special place, a separate place, a place where we can be our true selves, is so obvious to us today that we barely pause to think about it.

But, as Judith Flanders shows in this revealing book, 'home' is a relatively new concept. When in 1900 Dorothy assured the citizens of Oz that 'There is no place like home', she was expressing a view that was a culmination of 300 years of economic, physical and emotional change.

In The Making of Home, Flanders traces the evolution of the house across northern Europe and America from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, and paints a striking picture of how the homes we know today differ from homes through history.

The transformation of houses into homes, she argues, was not a private matter, but an essential ingredient in the rise of capitalism and the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Without 'home', the modern world as we know it would not exist, and as Flanders charts the development of ordinary household objects - from cutlery, chairs and curtains, to fitted kitchens, plumbing and windows - she also peels back the myths that surround some of our most basic assumptions, including our entire notion of what it is that makes a family.

As full of fascinating detail as her previous bestsellers, The Making of Home is also a book teeming with original and provocative ideas.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Architecture, Historical, Sociology, Reference, Art

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Judith Flanders was born in London, England, in 1959. She moved to Montreal, Canada, when she was two, and spent her childhood there, apart from a year in Israel in 1972, where she signally failed to master Hebrew.

After university, Judith returned to London and began working as an editor for various publishing houses. After this 17-year misstep, she began to write and in 2001 her first book, A Circle of Sisters, the biography of four Victorian sisters, was published to great acclaim, and nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. In 2003, The Victorian House (2004 in the USA, as Inside the Victorian Home) received widespread praise, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards History Book of the Year. In 2006 Consuming Passions, was published. Her most recent book, The Invention of Murder, was published in 2011.

Judith also contributes articles, features and reviews for a number of newspapers and magazines.

Reviews

[Jaylia3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This copiously researched 500 year history of homes in Europe and America has an almost overwhelming amount of detail, but is so fascinating I kept interrupting the lives of people around me to share something I had just read. Stretching from the tiny, crowded, windowless shacks of our ancestors to the paradigm shifting development of modern suburbs, Judith Flanders has written an eye-opening account.

Included in its scope are 500 years of evolving attitudes about family, marriage, children, gender roles, manners, human waste disposal, how brightly lit a home needs to be, when privacy is required, and what having a clean home means. Flanders describes the difficult ways people got water into their houses before plumbing, how meals were cooked over an open fire (stew was the main menu item for a long time), and how the Industrial Revolution came about. The effects of religion, technology, and changing economic circumstances are explored, and one book-long theme involves home versus house, and the fact that some languages and cultures don’t make a distinction between the two words.

There were all sorts of oddities I didn’t expect. At different points in history beds used to be kept in the parlour for show, sand was put on the floor to soak up grease and wax, people shared beds with their servants, and what little furniture there was stayed pushed against the wall and only moved into the center as needed--the better not to trip over it in the interior dimness that was standard for hundreds of years.

Another thing that interested me is that preserved historic houses are mainly the best of the best, not representative of where most people lived, and they are also the most recent examples of their kind--no one would have saved earlier inferior dwellings as they were replaced. For instance, as awful as they are the slave quarters on view for tourists are actually upgrades, and vast improvements over what enslaved people had to endure for most of the history of slavery in the American South.

[Gela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel as though this book took me forever to read. I honestly felt like I was reading a research paper at times. However there were times that I was completely into reading what makes a home versus a house and then reflecting on how I made my house a home. I don't know who I would refer this book to, Joanne from HGtv, but other than that I don't know. It's one of a kind that's for sure. I would give this book a 3.5.

Won this book "First-Reads" on "Goodreads"

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it because it's written well, in that there are no stumbling blocks to understanding like jargon or self-conscious wit. I was fascinated by all the factoids, and the organization of them made sense.

(Do note that this focuses on the colonies/ USA, England, France, Netherlands, and northern Europe.) (Included are not too many footnotes, end references, bibliography, index, and plate sections with 32 illustrations.)

But to me it seems like, ultimately, just a dense package of trivia. Ok, yes, it's history, not psychology (and at one point Flanders mocks a psychological interpretation), and not architecture (some modern, and not so modern, houses were designed deliberately to be *un* comfortable and inconvenient). But still, I thought I was going to get more about how the way we live affects our thoughts. Instead, it was more, our thoughts affect the way we have been living. One example is that cheap labor in England meant slower adoption of modern improvements and technology - why invest in a water heater when you had a maid and a fireplace (something like that).

The use of art as evidence is compelling, but more, as Flanders makes clear, for what is presented by the commissioned portraits and less so by a literal reading. Neither then nor now does anyone actually live in a House Beautiful set. And many of the homes that look poor to us are rich relative to the majority of people at the time... again, how often are the apartments of the Projects photographed for magazines? They're not now, and weren't then, so (combined with evidence from household estate inventories and other sources), historians have pieced together a reality that shocks a modern reader... then, the 99% lived 4-7 (or more) in a one room home that we'd call a hovel.

Staircases, livestock, the roles of children, the definition of dirt, the power of the housewife, the fact that 'labour-saving' appliances ironically made more tasks women's work and relieved the men... so many interesting bits.... Some people will be bothered that there's no actual narrative, but I wasn't. My main objection is that there's no conclusion or resonance, no answer to the question, "So what, what does it mean, why tell this story?"

I do recommend the book, 3.5 stars rounded up. Let's see if I can get you to add it with some samples:
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'[S]eparate spheres' were never more than an idea, and an idea for the prosperous. To believe they had a full, physical reality, creating borders between home and not-home, between public and private, is comparable to believing that a nation's borders are a painted line on the ground, which has been there since the creation of the world.

In 1871 the British census... only classed female labour outside the house as 'productive', which implicitly rendered all work inside the house as 'un-productive.' The 1881 census... re-categorized housewives as 'unoccupied.'

Period-room displays [as in history museums] might carefully confine themselves to items from a single region, or date, even though the contents of real homes have always been gathered over decades if not centuries, while trade routes from the sixteenth century onwards enabled goods to arrive from across the world.

A prosperous woman in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1791 inadvertently makes plain how low the level of lighting usually was. One supper party she attended, she marvelled, 'was so lighted we could see every body.'

The nitrogen in men's urine (women's is more acidic) speeds up the decomposition of kitchen refuse, and is still recommended for compost heaps today.
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Btw, Flanders makes a distinction between countries/languages that have two words for house & home, and those who have only one, but I don't understand what that distinction is supposed to mean, exactly. Something about primacy of privacy or family, maybe, I'd guess? If you can figure out what she was trying to say please let me know.

[Noel Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very informative tome. The writing is a bit like Margaret Visser’s, maybe not as densely packed with facts but you have to pause frequently to “catch your breath” and let everything absorb into your brain the same way. This is the kind of book that makes you walk around for the next week or two looking at things a bit differently. Not a quick read though. It’s too much to take in if you try to blitz through it.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

So funny story about this book. I originally put this book on my TBR because I signed up for a giveaway of this book. I thought it sounded interesting. I didn't win the giveaway, but just before I put this book on hold at the library the first time, I realized that it was the same author as The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. I was like "Huh, that's interesting" because I was on a Victorian crime kick a couple years ago and had read it then. It was a pretty cool book. Due to some life changes I ended up not reading the book when I got it from the library the first time. This second time, just before it came in I thought to myself "Self, if you are intrigued by this book and you liked The Invention of Murder. Perhaps you would like other books by this author." So I looked up Judith Flanders. Lo and behold, I've actually read a third book by her: Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England Which I happened to stumble across at the Massillon library early on in my Victorian crime kick. I thought it was an interesting book but a little much at times. Oh and the Victorians are weird.

Anyway, all that to say by defult, because I've accidentally read three books by her, Judith Flanders has become one of my favorite authors. Because I like to read about weird random stuff and she writes about weird random stuff.

Now for the review: This is a great book! It's different than what I expected. I was expecting a complete history of home dwelling from ancient times and throughout the world. Instead, Flanders focuses on Europe and North America from the middle ages forward. Instead of being a chronological study, the chapters focus on theme and it's well done. There were a few times where as I was reading I thought "She repeated this in a previous chapter," but it didn't detract from the rest of the book. The book covers the culture of home, from the size of homes to men's and women's roles, to the role of furniture and architecture, lighting and plumbing. Maybe that sounds boring to you, but it's all interwoven into culture which I'm a huge fan of. I learned a lot and realized there are a lot of misconceptions about the way people have lived throughout history. I think my favorite was the discussion of people's longing for the "Good old days" and a return to the family unit as central. (Spoiler alert, families have been broken for a long time.) If you are like me and enjoy reading about culture, check this book out. It's a pretty quick, enjoyable read.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the topics, but really struggled to make it through this one. The problem for me: too much. The scope covered too many centuries in too many countries and included so many factors of "home." There were many fascinating highlights, but the connective tissue was tough to chew.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of 'home' is something most of us take for granted. Not the existence of a home - whether we have one or not, whether we're leaving it, setting up a new one, breaking one up, sharing it - but the actual concept of a 'home' as opposed to a 'house'. Home is something more than simply the place that you live or where you lay your head at night, as Judith Flanders describes it, "the many ways of having a room of one's own, the possession of comfort, of nostalgia, of belonging, as well as the possession of possessions." Such a basic concept, we feel today, such an obvious concept, and yet for much of human history there was no such thing.

And interestingly, not all languages make this distinction - as Judith Flanders points out in this wide-ranging romp over 500 years of home versus house - Europe particularly can be divided into 'home' countries versus 'house countries', and that split mirrors other interesting trends - 'house' countries tend to have warmer climates and more of a tradition of communal living, life lived in public rather than private; in 'house' countries women married at a much younger age, with a far greater age gap between spouses, whereas 'home' countries marriage was more a joining of equals; in 'home' countries partners would wait for marriage until they could afford their own home together, in 'house' countries a home often housed many generations of a family, rather than a single couple.

All of these factors, and many others, contributed to this concept of the 'home' as something more than just a place of living. Judith Flanders charts the change over 500 years - from the very open communal living of great houses in the medieval era and the small hovels of the poorer folk whose homes very often were also their workplaces, all the way to the modern concept of a home as something insular and nurturing, a private space, with different rooms devoted to different tasks or functions or individuals. And even on into modernism and post-modernism, where function and efficiency has given way to style - where the 'look' is the thing, rather than whether an item of furniture or device is comfortable or practical. Flanders also charts the development of possessions, of the items we fill our homes with, the symbols of wealth or position, the time-saving devices, the way our rooms are laid out ergonomically.

I found this a really entertaining read, more so than I expected. At one point, when Flanders was recounting the history of curtains, for example, I even said out loud I couldn't believe how engrossed I was in the history of curtains! Or the concept of invisible furniture - items we know full well existed but are almost never mentioned in art or literature, like spittoons or spitting sheets - a concept we can still see lingering on today in fashion magazines or architecture features - where is the clutter? where are the toothbrushes and dirty shoes by the door and the toilet-brush by the toilet? The real triumph of this book is take a concept most of us take so utterly for granted ("there's no place like home") and shine the light of analysis on it - and the results are surprisingly interesting.

[Tara DuBose-Schmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flanders explains the history of the common home—-how the average person lived, not just royalty and the rich. She explains details from floor plans to furnishings, heating and lighting options, and family lifestyles. I found the chapter on building myths particularly intriguing. Most of us have an image of how people used to live, or should live, and Flanders applies researched facts to challenge these misconceptions.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I start, it seems wise to mention that 'house' is more akin to the place one returns while 'home' is more a safe-haven in the author's text. That said, the history that unfolds is much more about the things we have come to include in our home rather than how the idea of 'house' in Western tradition has morphed into the idea of 'home.' But then, if the sum of the parts is what makes the whole, the things we include conceivably become the home, which, by the end, is more or less what Flanders states.

As a cultural history, the book delivers, though the tone is less than exciting and within chapters the topics wander. The author has an air of having done her research (which is backed up by some copious notes), she just can't ever fully make the topics and items discussed completely engaging. If you're curious as to why we have a certain image of houses and how the items we include within our houses make them less a place to return to and more a safe haven, The Making of Home might catch your interest. If you want a thrilling narrative about the evolution of houses, this won't quite satisfy.

Note: ARC received via Amazon Vine in exchange for review.

[Nathalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does the groundplan of a house say about the values of its owners? Who was able to buy a bed in 16th century Europe? When did curtains become a household staple? Who was, back in the day, allowed to sit during dinner time? And who invented the modern day kitchen?

It took me quite a while to finish this book — its pages are spilling over with information. Slowly but surely, I lapped everything up: this book is well-researched, well-written and filled with fun facts, which make it very accessible and enjoyable. It would have been even more interesting for me if it had included other parts of the world instead of just Europe and North America, but I understand that one writer/historian cannot know everything. So here’s hoping someone else will fill that gap soon!

[TammyJo Eckhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I am a historian, I am an ancient historian who has some knowledge of later periods so the opportunity to read and review this book through the Amazon Vine program was welcomed. As a married American woman who hopes her family house is also her family home, the subject matter intrigued me. Judith Flanders primarily focuses on the five hundred year period from mid-15th to mid-20th century Western civilizations with rare comments that go back as far as the Roman world (with mixed results). She attempts to differentiate between cultures that have separate words for "house" and "home" and while this is an interesting division I did not feel she fully provided such a linguistic divide equalled a true culturally different. However, that difference does not impact the rest of the book very much because she then almost exclusively centers attention onto the two word cultures.

Flander successfully argues that "Home" is more than building styles and land ownership though there is a great deal of that in this book. "Home" includes ideas about place, about family, about society, and about the individual's relationship to these. This includes not just buildings but what is placed in the building, where it is placed, how it is used, each family member's role in and outside of the house, and the various ways that society encourages acceptance of the norms even though these change quite a bit over the 500 years Flanders looks at. I particularly enjoyed the trends in ideals that she traces and she clearly demonstrates how what is seen as "natural" or "god-given" or "healthy" has radically shifted over five centuries. I got an ARE of the book so I do not have any of the illustrations that I hope will have helped several of her points.

The second half of the 20th and the current early 21st century received very little attention and this was very disappointing to me. Yes, we are living now but as Flanders proved in the rest of the book, what we see as "normal" or "desirable" in "home" is often not recognized as different from the generations before us. How does the open-floor plan come about and how does it harken back to earlier ideas of "home," challenge those ideas, or challenge modernism (a development she spends several pages on at the end of the book)? Is current "home" a reflection of growing global awareness and less heterogeneous cultures? What messages are we creating that try to overcome these greater social trends or encourage them? These were all questions that I had that I really wish she spent at least a chapter on.

[Eugenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book traces the evolution of European and American homes-both physically and conceptually-from 16th to 20th centuries. The read is pretty fascinating, dense with details and I've learned some interesting trivia facts, but at times, the book is didactic and dry. I read it on Kindle, so the illustrations were separate from the text and you have to go back and forth to see that is described, which is irritating. However, i think the book will benefit from having more illustrations to make it more engaging for the reader, especially since it describes some architectural styles and goods that I've never heard of, and it would be nice to see the pictures of what is described, instead of searching for it myself. Overall, it's more of an academic, but still interesting read about the development of physical and emotional attributes of a home.

[Iulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful read, full of well researched facts and anecdotes. My only disappointment was that only the USA and western Europe were treated as examples, whereas Eastern Europe would have been a useful example to use for some chapters. Nonetheless, I understand that it's a huge task to document the entire planet about the notion of home and I respect that.

[Eva]

DNF at 8 %. If the whole thesis of your book rests on the theory that the Industrial revolution happened in Northwestern Europe because people in those countries have separate words for house and home - as opposed to Slavic languages that don't - it might be a good idea to consult more than two of those languages (both Czech and Slovak have a separate word for home. The Czech national anthem literally starts with 'Where my home is'. Very little effort would have been required to find this out). I'm sure a lot of good research went into this book but I found it really difficult to trust anything standing on such an easy to fix mistake.

[Jackie Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the development of what we think of as "home" today, from earliest times to the present. Recorded history overlooks this subject and its relationship to changing times and diverse cultures, so it is a very interesting look at what goes on "behind the scenes" as history rolls on. The illustrations are well chosen to illustrate the narrative.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The footnotes alone make this a fascinating read. The research is incredibly detailed and broad and thorough.
(This book also increases one's gratitude for living in the modern era! Thank you, washing machines.)

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading about how people lived and how what we take for granted today (light, space, furniture) has evolved. Very well researched and told and busts myths and enlightens about how people used to live.

[Abdullah Hussaini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kalaulah buku ni lebih banyak perihalkan Asia...

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

An absolute wealth of information, but it’s organized (or not) in such a way that I never got a handle on the overall vision. I remember bits and facts, but not how they hang together geographically or chronologically.

[Jana Andersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Scholarly and entertaining.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of really interesting history here! It was a fairly slow read, and this was definitely more of a "reading this because it's educating me more than entertaining me", but it's a history book. It certainly did its job!

[Karen Parisot · Rating 4 out of 5]

All cultures have a word meaning house, but not all have a word meaning home. In Judith Flander’s new book, The Making of Home, she explains how homes have evolved from basic one room dwellings with little to no furniture. Meticulously researched, it thoroughly covers every aspect of their development into the larger, multi-room homes of today. It’s obvious right from the get go that lots of thought, consideration and work went into the writing of this book. I think the author’s conclusions are well reasoned and insightful. At times surprising and revelatory, I found this book quite interesting. From now on I’ll look at art in a whole different way, and I definitely won’t idealize the past.

[Lacivard Mammadova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Məlumatların bolluğu və bütün bu informasiyaların müəllifin şərhi ilə verilməməsi çox yorur. Endiklopedik təsir yaranır. Bu tip kitablarda müəllifdən çox şey gözləyirəm, hələ yumor hissi varsa lap ideal alınır. Bu cəhətdən kitab Braysonun ( bu mövzuda çox kitab yazılıb, ən məşhuru Bill Braysonun müəllifi olduğu kitabdır deyə sanıram) yazdıqlarından, dəst xəttindən geri düşür. Bəyəndiyim cəhət hər hansı məlumat verilərkən bu dövrlərdə yazılmış kitablar və çəkilmiş rəsm əsərlərindən nümunələrin gətirilməsi və müqayisələrin aparılmasıdır.

[Ksenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an entertaining read with lots of interesting facts about daily life in Europe throughout history. However, I can't take seriously a non-fiction book of such kind when it contains no references to sources. There's a long list of secondary sources at the end, but zero footnotes or anything like that. Maybe it's just me but I'd like to know where any information comes from, especially while reading a history book that clearly builds on other history books.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sitting in my cozy, comfortable chair, with good lighting and central heat, reading about how it "used to be". Fascinating history of how "home" changed over the years. So glad I live in today's version of home!

[JZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating! So much research went into this book, and puts our current craze for huge houses with 'bonus rooms' in perspective. Makes me very grateful for clean water, electricity, and insulation, to say nothing of double glazing, steel roofing, and appliances. Great read.

[EK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Culture defines every aspect of our lives, so it is easy to fall into thinking that our culture is the natural state of things, and that it has always been this way. This book aims to make visible the invisible culture of home-- the design of the physical space, how it is used, and the abstract concept of a deep affinity to a place of shelter.

At times, it is a bit jarring to learn about the invention of something we take for granted (like the concept of a cupboard). It feels like visiting a foreign country for the first time and realizing that all of the traffic signs are different shapes and the waste receptacle is called a rubbish bin instead of a trash can-- these trivial things we've taken for granted since we first learned about them are suddenly brought to the front of our attention, and it's revealed how strange and arbitrary our cultural practices actually are. Why do we keep clothes in a chest instead of a closet? Why not have flexible multipurpose rooms that are all linked, instead of dead-end rooms with hallways and corridors in between? Instead of transparent glass windows and curtains, why not use shutters, or shoji screens, or open unglazed holes, or stained glass, or no windows at all?

For me, the weakest part of the book was the framing device, which suggests that all countries can be divided into "home countries" and "house countries" based on whether their primary language by default refers to the place where someone lives as their "home" (eg, English home) or "house" (eg, Spanish casa), and that based on these trivial vocabulary distinctions, we can draw actual sociological conclusions about the way people relate to their domiciles. I did not feel there was enough evidence to suggest a meaningful correlation. It seemed very much like a post-hoc justification of why the author wanted to discuss the culture of the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA specifically, instead of expanding to other European or global societies. To be clear, the scope the author chose was an excellent one, keeping the book focused despite the breadth of the topic, but personally, I would rather have no explanation of this choice than be given a weak explanation that leaves me questioning the rest of the sociological analysis.

That being said, I truly enjoyed this book and I thought that it had some interesting insights to share: particularly, the link between Calvinist prosperity gospel and the rise of secular conspicuous consumption as representing both patriotism and piety; the observation that labor-saving household devices mostly saved men's labor while simply transferring women's labor to different tasks that further isolated them from social life; and the modern idea of "home" as defined by the use of ahistorical symbols that nonetheless came to represent some "mythical past, a time when things had been simpler, easier". It's a thoughtprovoking read that I would certainly recommend.

[Popup-ch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly readable history of the history of the 'home' - in contrast to the 'house'.

Flanders splits Europe into cultures that have a separate word for 'home' and 'house' (roughly north and west) and cultures that use the same word for both concepts. In Northern Europe it was the norm (since at least the 16th century, probably longer) for couples to marry relatively late, leave their parental homes and set up a new home together. Unlike in Southern Europe, where multi-generational living was the norm. This 'home' culture put more emphasis on consumer goods, and almost by necessity implied that furnishings would be renewed at least once per generation. Which in turn spurred invention.

The book mostly talks about the development of the present ideal - a single-family house with matching windows and a chimney, that every five-year-old can draw. Many of the ideas it embodies hark back to an imagined ideal antediluvian paradise that never existed. For example, the 'Tudor-' and 'Queen Anne' styles common in England have very little to do with the architecture of those historical eras, and much more to do with nostalgia.

The corridor was invented in 1597 , based on monastic architecture with cells connected to a central courtyard. Prior to that, rooms were connected sequentially (if there were more than one).
English houses have always been cold. They stuck to open fireplaces despite closed stoves being much more efficient. A German book of 1904 (Mathudius, "Das Englishe Haus" was appalled at the lack of insulation and double glazing.)

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually loved this, despite that fact that much of the book is actually a little too dense for easy reading. I could not stop telling people about the weird facts I was learning and that in and of itself wins this book an extra star.

In all reality, if this subject is not already interesting to you, this book is not for you. But if you are the type to have loved Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, or like to think about how folks have interacted with their spaces in the past, this book might work well for you.

I'm also skeptical of some of Flander's claims - at times she seems to make contradictory arguments so I don't know how solid the historical base is here, but it is nonetheless kind of fascinating even if you do spend pages reading about the number of forks found in different respective houses throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

I would be so interested to see an extension of this book that examined how these ideas of "house" and "home" had developed in non European countries, and I'll be spouting new facts at people for days to come.

[Mary Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Making of Home was chock-full of truly fascinating information, but unfortunately the writing was all over the place, and quite dry. Perhaps if the author had presented the information strictly chronologically, or in small, easier to manage topics (e.g. "storage" or "lighting"), or even by geography, the subject matter would have been easier to take in and digest. As it was, I never knew from one moment to the next which country or century she was talking about. Unfortunately, the reader is bombarded with so much information in such a jumbled format that it will be hard to retain any details with accuracy. I'm left with general impressions. Even an appendix with a timeline of evolution would have been incredibly helpful. 500 years in only 7 chapters was just too overwhelming. Even the photos, which were very helpful, could have been presented in a more useful way - mixed in with the relevant text, ideally, or at least put in the order in which they were referenced.

Done correctly, this would have been a 5 star book. As it is, I'm sad to say that three is generous.