What does the Hansa, a confederation of trade guilds in the Middle Ages, teach us about the modern middle class? How did the modern state evolve to take on so many roles in a country’s economy? Find out in this week’s episode of Baggage Allowance.

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In Rwanda, people have invented ways to order things online without revealing their addresses. Encryption was a household name in Germany long before it arrived on American shores. Shopping bags in Japan don’t have any logos or ads. Your salary is public information in Sweden. In Finland, people are allowed to camp on private land. And nudity isn’t very taboo in many places. All this and more is explored on this week’s topic: privacy.

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This episode is a little different from the others and touches on several design choices I observed while traveling. The first half of the episode describes the Oodi library in Finland, and the second half describes interior decor and space saving strategies in Japan and Swedish homes. I briefly discuss other designs along the way.

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Culture is more than just food, clothing, or way of life. It is the collective equivalent of an ego, and as nations change, their cultural narrative changes with it. In this episode, I explore how technological changes in India and Japan affected their culture narrative, and how the shifting borders affected the culture narrative of Latvia and Germany.

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