First developed by Italian historians in the 1970s, microhistory is a genre of history that focuses on small units of research, such as an event, community, or individual. Commonly associated with social and cultural history, microhistories encourage asking big questions about what we think of as “the little things in life.” Summaries from Goodreads.
The Address Book by Deirdre Mask* This wide-ranging book illuminates the complex, sometimes hidden stories behind street names and their power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn’t—and why. Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr., ancient Roman wayfinding, and how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany. We also see what not having an address means for millions of people, including those who live in the slums of Kolkata and on the streets of London.
I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Many people think of microbes as germs to be eradicated, but those that live with us—the microbiome—build our bodies, protect our health, shape our identities, and grant us incredible abilities.
Replaceable You by Mary Roach* For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?
Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar Parking determines the design of new buildings and the fate of old ones, patterns of traffic and the viability of transit, neighborhood politics and municipal finance, the quality of public space, and even the course of floodwaters. A mesmerizing, thought-provoking story about the strange and wonderful superorganism that is the modern American city.
Airplane Mode by Shahnaz Habib For Habib, an Indian Muslim woman, travel has always been a complicated pleasure. Yet, her journeys have profoundly shaped her life. Habib offers inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guide-books, expressways, the idea of wanderlust. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism—but as any traveler knows, travel is more than that.
*Discuss these titles at Thursday Evening Book Club
