A SOCIAL HISTORY OF FURNITURE DESIGN FROM 1300 BC TO 1960 DC ."Furniture reveals many confidential things about the past and the present ," providing us , as the author points out , with "an intimate , personal record of habits , postures , manners , fashions and follies ." In this book the changing character of furniture is described and illustrated from the work of ancient Egyptian and greek craftsmen to the golden age of the great French and English cabinetmakers in the eighteenth century and the contemporary style of the present day. A missing chapter of social history has been written , for the design of furniture over the centuries gives a vivid acount of the long battle for warmth and privacy in England and northern Europe , the struggle between dignity and comfort , the slow rise of literacy , and the even slower improvement in personal cleanlineas.