Thought-provoking, perhaps controversial, and certainly worth reading! "The Grim Old Days: An Introduction to the Preindustrial Past" by Chelsea Follett. amzn.to/4i6gSUh "The preindustrial world was far more gruesome than modern minds can fathom—marked by unthinkable poverty, drudgery, cruelty, and pain. From child abuse and famine-induced cannibalism to bloodletting and streets that doubled as open sewers, ordinary existence was fraught with horrors. The Grim Old Days indulges the reader’s morbid curiosity about everyday history with firsthand accounts and shocking facts, meticulously researched and laid out in grotesque detail." Joel Mokyr: "In this engaging and richly documented account of daily life of common people in the past, Follett eviscerates the widely believed myths of the good old days. Life before industrialization was, as Hobbes once put it, ‘poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ It was also uncomfortable, disease-ridden, insecure, and painful." amzn.to/4i6gSUh