World We Have Lost

What was life like in England before the Industrial Revolution? The World We Have Lost is widely regarded as a classic of historical writing and a vital book in reshaping our understanding of the past and the structure of family life in England. Turning away from the prevailing fixation of history on a grand scale, Laslett instead asks some simple yet fundamental questions about England before the Industrial Revolution: How long did people live? How did they treat their children? Did they get enough to eat? What were the levels of literacy? His findings overturned much received wisdom: girls did not generally marry in their early teens, but often worked before marrying at much the same ages that young people marry today. Most people did not live in extended families, or even live their whole lives in the same villages. Going beyond the immediate structure of the family, he also explores the position of servants, the gentry, rates of migration, work and social mobility. Laslett’s classic work was crucial in causing an important sociological turn in early modern English history and remains as fresh and exhilarating today as upon its first publication. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Kevin Schürer.

"Peter Laslett’s greatest gift as his best-known book, The World We Have Lost, suggests, was more for evocation than analysis: to bring back to life, in all their confusion, ingenuity and suffering, the human beings who have long gone.£ - John Dunn, The Independent"The outcome of years of research…transformed our knowledge of the English family…Laslett showed how life in pre-industrial society was no idyll." - The Telegraph, "Peter Laslett’s greatest gift as his best-known book, The World We Have Lost, suggests, was more for evocation than analysis: to bring back to life, in all their confusion, ingenuity and suffering, the human beings who have long gone." - John Dunn, The Independent"The outcome of years of research…transformed our knowledge of the English family…Laslett showed how life in pre-industrial society was no idyll." - The Telegraph

Peter Laslett (1915–2001) was a Life Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A leading historian of his generation, he was one of the founders of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. A passionate advocate for using radio and television to help history reach a wider audience, he worked as a BBC radio producer and ran a series of programmes on Anglia Television, the 'Dawn University'. With the sociologist Michael Young he also helped establish the Open University in 1969.