The Age of Comfort; When Paris Discowered Casual - And the Modern Home Began, by Joan DeJean

摘要

Historian of French culture Joan DeJean's The Age of Comfort is a fascinating book that boldly seeks the answer to weighty ques-tions through a careful study of the objects of our everyday interior domestic environments. For example, DeJean provocatively asks and answers in the affirmative "Could relaxed posture and well-cushioned chairs have played a role in the spread of civilization?" (p. 236). It is these bold fluctuations in scale and passionate reflec-tions on the relationship between culture and space which make this well-researched study so engaging.