333 Forbidden Things (That Used to Be Allowed)

Jakob Ernst, an author and collector of curiosities from contemporary history, has compiled a list of 333 things that were once permitted, tolerated, or considered completely normal in society—and that are now banned, restricted, or strictly regulated.

From children riding in cars without seatbelts, to dangerous toys, smoking rooms, and wild recreational activities, all the way to long-gone rules in school, the workplace, medicine, consumerism, love, travel, and public life: This book shows just how astonishingly quickly something completely normal can become something completely unthinkable.

Jakob Ernst writes : “What looking back teaches me is that every rule is relative. It may last for decades and yet remain a child of its time—created for a limited time, subject to change, and sometimes even reversible. What sounds completely obvious today may be viewed by people fifty years from now with the same incredulous shake of the head with which we look today at an unsecured child on the rear shelf.”

Even our rules today will one day be history.

That is precisely why this book is far more than a collection of curious prohibitions. It is a tongue-in-cheek look at a society in flux—and at the fascinating question of why we take some things for granted today that would have been unthinkable just yesterday.