History is recorded in many ways. According to author James Deetz, the past is given new dimensions by studying the small things so often forgotten. Doorways, gravestones, musical instruments, and shards of pottery (objects so plain they would never be displayed in a museum) depict the intricacies of daily life.

In this completely revised and expanded edition of In Small Things Forgotten, Deetz has added a chapter addressing the influence of African culture - a culture so strong it survived the Middle Passage and the oppression of slavery - on America in the years following the settler's arrival in Jamestown, Virginia.

Simultaneously a study of American life and an explanation of how American life is studied, In Small Things Forgotten colorfully depicts a world hundreds of years in the past through the details of ordinary living.