Luggage

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. 

You can’t think about travel without thinking about luggage. And baggage has baggage. Susan Harlan’s Luggage takes readers on a journey with the suitcases that support, accessorize, and tour with our globalized lives. The materials of travel—the suitcases, carry-on bags, totes, trunks, and train cases of the past and present—tell stories about displacement, home, gender, class, consumption, and labor. Luggage shapes travel, and the way it has shaped travel has changed over time. This book is an inquiry into bags as carefully curated microcosms of our domestic and professional lives.  A suitcase contains more than you might think.  

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

"Susan Harlan writes with empathy and erudition about the things we lug, haul, pack, and leave behind. This little book—compact enough to throw in your carry-on for your next flight—is edifying and entertaining in equal measures. I loved it." -Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking With Men