Ideal for history majors, nonhistory majors taking history courses, as well as general readers, this book provides not only the primary documents and artifacts of ordinary people in history, but also annotations that help the reader put them into context and grasp their deeper meaning.

This two-volume work explores daily life across human history through primary sources, making use of this primary source material as well as detailed analysis to help readers understand and use these sources as evidence of how life used to be. The diverse selection of sources includes artifacts, inscriptions, histories, letters, and first-hand accounts, ranging from ancient times to the emergence of modern Europe to the present day. This set makes use of an innovative layout: facing pages contain a primary source selection on the left side, with the introduction and analysis on the right side. This facing-pages layout allows readers to access the text information and the primary source itself without any distracting page-turning.

Unlike most other books on history that relay key, momentous events in history and tales regarding kings and generals, aristocrats, and the highly educated, How They Lived: An Annotated Tour of Daily Life through History in Primary Sources includes significant coverage of ordinary people and interesting information about everyday life at all levels of society. As a result, this collection helps close the gap in what students of history are typically exposed to through its presentation of both written documents and images of artifacts.