Empire of Things
How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
What we consume has become a central—perhaps the central—feature of modern life. Our economies live or die by spending, we increasingly define ourselves by our possessions, and this ever-richer lifestyle has had an extraordinary impact on our planet. How have we come to live with so much stuff, and how has this changed the course of history?
In Empire of Things, Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary story of our modern material world, from Renaissance Italy and late Ming China to today’s global economy. While consumption is often portrayed as a recent American export, this monumental and richly detailed account shows that it is in fact a truly international phenomenon with a much longer and more diverse history. Trentmann traces the influence of trade and empire on tastes, as formerly exotic goods like coffee, tobacco, Indian cotton and Chinese porcelain conquered the world, and explores the growing demand for home furnishings, fashionable clothes and convenience that transformed private and public life. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought department stores, credit cards and advertising, but also the rise of the ethical shopper, new generational identities and, eventually, the resurgence of the Asian consumer.
With an eye to the present and future, Frank Trentmann provides a long view on the global challenges of our relentless pursuit of more—from waste and debt to stress and inequality. A masterpiece of research and storytelling many years in the making, Empire of Things recounts the epic history of the goods that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the past six hundred years.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this informed, detailed, and dynamic account, Trentmann (Free Trade Nation), a professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, investigates how consumption the acquisition, flow, use, and disposal of things has become a defining feature of modern lives. Organizing his work in a broadly chronological but also thematic manner, Trentmann considers a wider time frame and geographic focus than many traditional accounts of socio-economic history. He takes readers from late Ming China and Renaissance Italy to 17th- and 18th-century Britain and the Netherlands (early "hotspots of consumption"), then to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and beyond. He reveals the major forces that have framed the context of what and how humans have consumed: states and empires, war and ideology, markets and money. Along the way, Trentmann describes the inadequacies of various conventional perspectives and scholarly accounts. He takes no firm moral stance; rather, he aims to provide historical perspective on the rise of mass consumption, arguing that viewing the past through one's own moral filter limits understanding. Though general readers may have difficulty with the book's length and academic foundations, Trentmann has created a valuable contribution to the conversation around consumption a commendable fusion of scholarship and engaging writing. Photos, maps & charts.
