This title accompanies Channel 4's programme that reveals just how radically life has been transformed by a century of science and technology. This "living experiment" transports a family, with all their technological dependencies, back to 1900 to live for three months in a house restored to the exact specifications of the era. As the family struggle to adjust to these strange conditions in which electricity, plumbing, central heating, basic hygiene and all the other essentials that we now take for granted have not yet been discovered, the real difference science has made to our lives becomes amusingly clear. For the three months the family live in this 1900 house with gas lighting, coal fires, candlelight, carbolic soaps and an outside privy. They dress in starched collars, wash their clothes with a "dolly", haul coal up the stairs and use an earth closet instead of a flushing toilet. Revealing and entertaining, combining scientific discovery with surprising insights into everyday life, this book is an accessible approach to the history of science.

Review

It sounds like a great idea--but would you have done it? Take your family to an authentic 1900-style house in the suburbs of London and live for three months as Victorians? The Bowlers, Paul and Joyce, with their four children, Kathryn, Ruth, Hilary and Joe, were chosen for this time-travel experiment and survived well. They all admired their Victorian forebears but only Paul Bowler, the father, envied them. Perhaps this just shows that life 100 years ago may have been very good for men, but not so good for housewives or children. The girls were especially delighted at the end of the three months to be back in the age of Point Horror books, Leonardo di Caprio and hair-care products. You can get a good feel of how hard life was from the Bowler's shopping list: no hair conditioner, automatic washing-powder, kiwi fruit, frozen food, but instead, "ammonia, bathbrick, borax, candles, gelatine, lard, tapioca and turpentine." On the other hand, there are some nice surprises: toast was made in a matter of seconds, grilled before the open range. This is a fascinating picture of how life really felt in 1900, accompanying a major Channel 4 series. -- Christopher Hart

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