Forgotten Household Crafts
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Product Description
Originally published in two separate volumes (The Forgotten Arts and Forgotten Household Crafts), this book brings under one cover the wisdom of John Seymour, a well-known thinker on matters of self-sufficiency, traditional arts, and voluntary simplicity. Seymour is a utopian--he has a vision of a better world where people aren't alienated from their labors. In the introduction he writes, "Are we justified in using articles, no matter how convenient it may be for us to use them, that we know were produced in conditions which bored and even stultified the human beings who had to make them?" This question led Seymour to the research that forms the foundation of the book: rediscovering natural ways of making tools, shoes, furniture, and a variety of other items using methods that follow the grain of wood or the idiosyncrasies of a piece of stone. Seymour respects what he calls "the discipline of natural materials," and he longs for a world free of "mass produced rubbish." Chapters cover an astonishing range: from clog making to spinning to canning. Since this book is intended as a comprehensive survey, don't expect to be an expert on, say, forging metal by reading Seymour's descriptions. He doesn't go into great detail; rather, he gives the basic facts of each forgotten labor of love, and it's up to readers to decide if it's a labor they want to undertake. --Emily White
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
disapointed
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I was totally disapointed with this book. It was not what I had expected at all nor what the name implied. I would not recommend it to anyone.
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Summary:
Know the Facts Before Buying this Book
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John Seymoure is one of my favorite authors to read. He is brilliant, witty, wise and sincere about a subject that is dear to my heart: self-sufficiency and homesteding. That being said, please read this review before purchasing this book.
This is an excellent book that explains to you how crafts were done before the industrial era. So, for ideas or nostalgic uses, this book is excellent. This book is not good, however, for those that are looking for a how-to book that explains how to perform these crafts.
Furthermore, I highly suggest foregoing this book altogether and purchasing John Seymour's "The Forgotten Arts & Crafts: Skills from Bygone Days", ISBN-13 9780789458476. The reason I say this is because you will get both 'feminine' forgotten household arts as well as 'masculine' forgotten arts, such as tanning, fence-making, felling, wheelwrighting, farrier work, etc, for roughly the same price.
Whatever you choose, though, you won't regret your expenditure. Another book of Seymours that I recommend is "Self Sufficiency and How to Live It."
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forgotten crafts
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This book is great for research . I bought it because it was (I thought) going to teach me how to do some more things. It did not. I would not buy this again. I'll get rid of my copy as soon as I can.
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NOT USEFUL, but it does have nice sketches of stuff
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Somehow I was under the impression that this book would be useful, but I was dead wrong. I see the book is tagged with terms like "permaculture, homesteading, organic farming, survival, country skills..." How terribly misleading!!! Who tagged this book with those terms?!?! I am way into Permaculture and it's myriad disciplines, so I bought this book thinking it might help me make something useful with my hands, but not at all. It has nice sketches of things, but ends about there. A great coffee table book for antique junkies and the likes, though. See the review by Ryan McNabb, I completely agree with him. As he said in his last paragraph,
"These books are a lovely diversion from the cares of modern life, but they won't take you there any more than a book about the space shuttle will put you in orbit. The simple life is attainable, but it will be the hardest thing you ever do, and this book won't help you one bit."
Wish I'd read his review before I bought it.
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Careful- not the same as review
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Comment:
While this is a beautiful book, it is NOT the combination of Seymnour's previous works, but a reprint of only "Forgotten Household Crafts", and without any color plates like the original. If you want the compilation, make sure the title indicates BOTH former books ("Forgotten Arts AND Crafts"). The Amazon review is the same for both, but is inaccurate for this book!
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