Friday Find: Reviews in History

Looking for some of the sources used in Our Daily Bread, German Village Life, 1500-1850, I found the Reviews in History website. While books reviews may not be an ideal source, I was able to pick up several nuggets of information from reviews of books by Sheilagh Ogilvie. Obviously, the book itself would be a better source—or the original documents referenced in the work—but when you can’t get the book (or can’t afford it; some of these textbooks are expensive!)—a discussion of the content may provide some valuable information you might otherwise not have found. For instance, I learned that “Women could work in guilded occupations only if they were the wife of a master or if they were a guild master’s widow, and had inherited his guild licence.”¹ This provided a possible source of income for the widow of my ancestor—a shoemaker in his village—and explained one reason why she might have been able to wait several years to remarry, even with a household of young children.

• Category: Resources
• Tag: Book Review