Inside The Great House

Inside the Great House explores the nature of family life and kinship in planter households of the Chesapeake during the eighteenth century—a pivotal era in the history of the American family. Drawing on a wide assortment of personal documents—among them wills, inventories, diaries, family letters, memoirs, and autobiographies—as well as on the insights of such disciplines as psychology, demography, and anthropology, Daniel Blake Smith examines family values and behavior in a plantation society. Focusing on the emotional texture of the household, he probes deeply into personal values and relationships within the family and the surrounding circle of kin. Childrearing practices, male-female relationships, attitudes toward courtship and marriage, father-son ties, the character and influence of kinship, familial responses to illness and death, and the importance of inheritance—all receive extended treatment. A striking pattern of change emerges from this mosaic of life in the colonial South. What had once been a patriarchal, authoritarian, and emotionally restrained family environment altered profoundly during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The personal documents cited by Smith clearly point to the development after 1750 of a more intimate, child-centered family life characterized by close emotional bonds and by growing autonomy—especially for sons—in matters of marriage and career choice. Well-to-do planter families inculcated in their children a strong measure of selfconfidence and independence, as well as an abiding affection for their family society. Smith shows that Americans in the North as well as in the South were developing an altered view of the family and the world beyond it—a perspective which emphasized a warm and autonomous existence. This fascinating study will convince its readers that the history of the American family is intimately connected with the dramatic changes in the lives of these planter families of the eighteenth-century Chesapeake.

New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the National Book Award • Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award • A Best Book of the Year as chosen by the New York Times (Notable), Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlantic, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Oregonian, and Book Page. "Masterful…Evocative and moving." —NPR For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944. Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared. Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change? Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss. "This is a novel about the long journey of a magnificent desk as it travels through the twentieth century from one owner to the next. It is also a novel about love, exile, the defilements of war, and the restorative power of language." —National Book Award citation

Bestselling author Susanka ("The Not So Big House") teams up with architectural design writer Vassallo to expand upon the message that has resonated with over a million homeowners: opting for personalized, well-crafted, thoughtfully designed spaces over superfluous square footage results in a home that comforts and nourishes those who live there.

This stunning book presents the intriguing stories and celebrated histories of some of the leading families of Great Britain and Ireland and the opulent residences that have defined their heritages. The history of England is inextricably linked with the stories of its leading aristocratic dynasties and the great seats they have occupied for centuries. As the current owners speak of the critical roles their ancestors have played in the nation, they bring history alive. All of these houses have survived great wars, economic upheavals, and, at times, scandal. Filled with stunning photography, this book is a remarkably intimate and lively look inside some of Britain’s stateliest houses, with the modern-day aristocrats who live in them and keep them going in high style. This book presents a tour of some of England’s finest residences, with many of the interiors shown here for the first time. It includes Blenheim Palace—seven acres under one roof, eclipsing the splendor of any of the British royal family’s residences—property of the Dukes of Marlborough; the exquisite Old Vicarage in Derbyshire, last residence of the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (née Deborah Mitford); Haddon Hall, a vast crenellated 900-year-old manor house belonging to the Dukes of Rutland that has been called the most romantic house in England; and the island paradises on Mustique and St. Lucia of the 3rd Baron Glenconner. This book is perfect for history buffs and lovers of traditional interior design and English country life.

In Inside Out, author Glenn Williamson explains the award-winning development of St. Petersburg's first modern Class A office/retail center by a multinational team of Americans, Russians, Brits, Turks, and Finns. Inside Out provides a fascinating memoir of his experiences working as a developer in Russia in the 1990s while balancing a home life with a new baby son. With unique and astute anecdotes, it offers insights into Russia, its people, and its culture. Inside Out, funny and serious, sincere and sarcastic, narrates the anatomy of a real estate deal. Now, at a time when America and Russia consider ways to reset their relations, Williamson's story shows how actual players on all sides of a complex business and personal adventure looked for, and ultimately found, a common language.

Provides a review of social trends and their effect on architecture and design.

Great Houses of London tells the stories of some of the grandest and most fascinating houses in this historic city, from their famous owners and occupants to their renovations and the many riches held within each.