دانلود کتاب چیزهای کوچک در قرن هجدهم

Look around you. You may be seated at a desk or in a comfortable reading chair. No matter your position, there is bound to be something small in view or at hand. A paperclip. A reminder on a scrap of paper. The watch on your wrist. A pencil. A rubber band. A stray thread, a coin, or wisp of lint sheltered in your pocket. A piece of Lego underfoot, a USB key, or smartphone. This preliminary list of the small things that linger and lurk in our surroundings will inevitably remain incomplete and so we invite you to note the small things within your grasp and within sight. Now as in the eighteenth century, small things were here, there, and everywhere, from the pins that fell between wooden floorboards to the clumps of sugar spooned into tea. Small things were displayed on dressing tables and in curio cabinets, tucked in pockets, nestled in palms, and talked about. It’s our contention in this collection that small things are all too frequently overlooked but that they were ubiquitous features of eighteenth-century life, significant enough to the authors, artisans, merchants, settlers, printers, and thieves who made them, sought them out, and debated their meanings.