Book Report: The Power of Place

Years ago I had a sales and marketing career in the relocation industry. I was always very intrigued with the emotional aspect of the process. It wasn't lost on me that that moving was on a short of list of things under death and divorce as the most stressful experiences a person will endure in life. I witnessed plenty of tumultuous situations but for the most part, the people I dealt with were happy with their decisions and excited about the change they were undertaking. In fact, the majority of the people I dealt with had moved many times, many internationally. They rarely saw it as their lives being upset, or being displaced from things they loved. In most cases they packed up more than boxes, they saw it as an extension of one long adventure that happened in 5 to 7 year chunks. The stories I heard had a common thread. The descriptions of their adventures of different cultures were always interwoven with references to the homes and immediate environments in which they lived, worked and played.

Winifred Gallagher examines our relationship to places in her book entitled, The Power of Place, "How our surroundings shape our thoughts, emotions and actions".

An interviewer asks Gallagher; "What's the single most important thing to know about our relationship to places?"That our environments are not just backdrops to our lives--they affect how we think, feel and act! Even in the womb, external stimuli such as light and sound help organize our developing sensory systems. That's why babies recognize their mother's voices...

Gallagher consults the scientific community to a great extent in the book and it references a lot of research, however, it's a relatively easy read. Gallagher's previous book, House Thinking, is also a very revealing look, room by room at the evolution of the American home. It's a psychoanalytic view of how homes affect our thoughts and actions. If you've read this book and find yourself having a hard time describing a room or need to liven up a showing that's not going so well, you can always fill the void by talking about the dynamics surrounding bedrooms and intimacy or the psychology of why traditional dining and living rooms have given way to great rooms.

Previous Book Reports:

The Long Tail
An Army of Davids
Mavericks At Work
Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?