Forgotten Arts and Crafts

This book is simply amazing. It collects within it, the major skills used to make the items one used during every-day life in colonial america and late 19th century england. Items are described in great detail, as well as the trades and craftsmen who made them. Diagrams, photos and pictures are all clear.This book is not a how-to guide, however. You will need thorough instructions from elsewhere. What it is is an encyclopedia of sadly-forgotten trades from days when everything was made somewhere other than China.There is indeed nothing about bookbinding as one reviewer mentioned. I was rather bummed about that as well. However, I can easily forgive this, since it's not what I would consider a "survival skill". Forgotten Arts and Crafts highlights trades that contribute to the living and surviving of daily life, rather than the extras such as reading, music, etc, for the most part. Coopers, tanners, butter-making, the care and tending of an old household pre-vaccum and washing, saddle-making, carpentry, farriers and blacksmiths, spinners, weavers, carpenters, etc... were all required to merely subsist in ye old days when everyone in a town or village was generally a deeply-skilled craftsman...those days before we had cars and super-transmorgrified mega-marts. As sad as it makes me, a devopted book-lover, literacy and thus the making of books were not of that skill set.Anyway, this is a most excellent book for those interested in a project-starting book for ideas, as well as for writers, researchers, and history buffs of all kinds. Heck, *I* don't like history and I loved this one. Fascinating stuff.

This is an amazing compilation of various and assorted arts and crafts from the past and current times. The book is filled with hundreds of photographs and drawings that add to the explanations and details. This isn't just a listing of art styles, it is a book containing knowledge that once was used everyday, This book preserves the basic knowledge of everyday life, from building the house, making furniture, to caring for it and feeding the family. The back-to-nature green-living people should all have a copy. Yes it is that good and should be available in more public libraries for research. I have added this book to my collection of how-to and survival knowledge.

High on varirty and great descriptions. Low on "how to" details.

If you found yourself with a handful of basic iron tools, alone in a forest for the long term, the one book that you might want to bring along is "Forgotten Arts and Crafts." This book preserves, with excellent illustration and description, a vast array of manufacturing processes from the latter 19th century, before they largely became displaced by machinofacture.

This book is really fun to flip through, with great drawings and a wide range of topics. It goes into the "old fashioned" tools and techniques that people used to work and clean, and has some information on people who still use them. However, if you are looking for a how-to, this will probably not give you enough information. Not for serious homesteaders, but great for a historical coffee table book.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book are the old photos and old diagrams. I do not know of any compendium anywhere of this scope and depth. The author traveled all over to visit with craftsmen making all sorts of things, including tools to make things, which makes this book totally unique. I very much recommend his other books, all are excellent, even his doomer novel set in England.

This is a link back to the lost arts. The forgotten knowledge of mankind that was hard won and here presented for you to look at. You will be amazed as I was. We have lost so much with electronic. If there is every a re-set of civilization, you would want this book at your reach. Seriously.

Great coffee table book. Not a how to book. Good reference on terminology.

This book is a fantastic book a masterpiece it was worth paying every penny could not put the book down by this book before it disappears into the mist of time you will not get a better book on all forgotten crafts anywhere else forget about the Internet this book is a masterpiece a library book masterpiece

recommended

The person I bought this book for is over the moon, very informative on forgotten crafts.

Great book about lost or forgotten rural crafts

Excellent book