A thoughtful Sloper recently bought me a new book called The Rise and Fall of American Growth which you can see on Amazon by clicking here
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from forty-five to seventy-two years. Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end?
For myself, I’m enjoying the book tremendously. I’m the sort who would much rather read 
about what life was like for everyday people instead of who the generals were, what the government administration did, and what the GDP was doing. I want to read about how people lived day to day, what they ate, how they worked, the dangers they faced, and what their families were like.
The book is packed full of tables and charts, and there’s no shortage of well-indexed data, but the real meat of the book is that it gives you a true sense as to how difficult life was for almost everyone back in 1870 and how radically things changed in the 70 years that followed. As the author makes clear, a person from 1940 would be completely at sea if they were sent back to 1870, whereas a person in 2010, taking part in their own 70-year backward trip through time, would find virtually all aspects of everyday living to be familiar and comfortable (the lack of Facebook and Twitter notwithstanding).
For you history buffs out there, I heartily recommend this book. It makes a fine companion to my own modest historical offering.
