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Amanda Vickery - A History of Private Life

Amanda Vickery - A History of Private Life: Episode 23: Science and Nature at Home

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Episode 23

Episode 23: Science and Nature at Home

Science and Nature at Home

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Amanda Vickery - A History of Private Life, Science and Nature at Home

How eccentric homes reflected wider 18th-century ideas about science and nature.

A room made of feathers? Historian Amanda Vickery reveals how eccentric homes reflected wider 18th-century ideas about science and nature.

Historian Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of home over 400 years. She draws on first-hand accounts from letters and diaries, many of which have never been heard before. Including songs which have been specially recorded for the series. 

These days we take it for granted that the home is a place of refuge in which we express our true self; that idea was an invention of the 18th century. Prof Vickery explores the invention of taste, and the role of interior decor in creating both social prestige and a successful marriage.

A room constructed entirely of feathers, a hermitage in the garden of a Lincolnshire vicarage, Alexander Pope's grotto - how eccentric homes reflected wider 18th-century ideas about science and nature.

Readers: Deborah Findlay, John Sessions, Madeleine Brolly and Simon Tcherniak.

Singers: Gwyneth Herbert and Thomas Guthrie, with David Owen Norris at the keyboard.

A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

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Historian Amanda Vickery reveals the hidden history of home over 400 years

Historian Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of home over 400 years, drawing on first-hand accounts from letters and diaries

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