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Ask the Past by Elizabeth P. Archibald
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Ask the Past

Pertinent and Impertinent Advice from Yesteryear

$15.74

Get for $14.99 with membership
Length 2 hours 34 minutes
Language English
Narrators Graeme Malcolm & Elizabeth P. Archibald

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Want to know how to garden with lobsters? How to sober up? Grow a beard? Or simply how to make a perfect omelet? Look no further. Rather, look backward.

Based on the popular blog, Ask the Past is full of the wisdom of the ages--as well as the fad diets, zany pickup lines, and bacon Band-Aids of the ages. Drawn from centuries of antique texts by historian and bibliophile Elizabeth P. Archibald, Ask the Past offers a delightful array of advice both wise and weird.

Whether it's eighteenth-century bedbug advice (sprinkle bed with gunpowder and let smolder), budget fashion tips of the Middle Ages (save on the clothes, splurge on the purse) or a sixteenth-century primer on seduction (hint: do no pass gas), Ask the Past is a wildly entertaining guide to life from the people who lived it first.

Yale-educated historian Elizabeth P. Archibald is an instructor at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins. Her research focuses on the history of education from antiquity to the Renaissance, as well as the history of books. She launched the blog Ask the Past in 2013.

Yale-educated historian Elizabeth P. Archibald is an instructor at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins. Her research focuses on the history of education from antiquity to the Renaissance, as well as the history of books. She launched the blog Ask the Past in 2013.

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Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale