Introduction: Ways of Life

Abstract

What was it like to live in the eighteenth century? How did our predecessors perceive and experience their physical and sociocultural environment? How did they understand and explain what was going on around them? How did they think, feel, and communicate? And in more concrete terms: How did the food taste, the music sound, the streets and backyards smell, the heat and cold feel on their skin? How did they perceive the towns, the landscape, and themselves? These are some of the most intriguing questions for the historian of any epoch. This volume of Sjuttonhundratal deals with various ways of life during the eighteenth century. The articles show in different respects what life could be like in a seemingly isolated part of Europe; how new ideas and information found new receivers through missionaries, schools, and journals; how travel through Europe was a means of obtaining new ideas about trade and technology and becoming acquainted with how other people lived and worked. The volume is also about life in art and science, and the life in the courts and cities.