The Consumer Revolution, 1650-1800

Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-521-13959-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 63, 262 Seiten, Format (B × H): 227 mm x 153 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: New Approaches to European History

The production, acquisition, and use of consumer goods defines our daily lives, and yet consumerism is seen as increasingly controversial. Movements for sustainable and ethical consumerism are gaining momentum alongside an awareness of how our choices in the marketplace can affect public issues. How did we get here? This volume advances a bold new interpretation of the 'consumer revolution' of the eighteenth century, when European elites, middling classes, and even certain labourers purchased unprecedented quantities of clothing, household goods, and colonial products. Michael Kwass adopts a global perspective that incorporates the expansion of European empires, the development of world trade, and the rise of plantation slavery in the Americas. Kwass analyses the emergence of Enlightenment material cultures, contentious philosophical debates on the morality of consumption, and new forms of consumer activism to offer a fresh interpretation of the politics of consumption in the age of abolitionism and the Atlantic Revolutions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kwass, Michael

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Consumer revolution; 2. The globalization of European consumption; 3. Going shopping; 4. The cultural meanings of consumption; 5. Consuming enlightenment; 6. The luxury debate; 7. The politics of consumption in the age of revolution; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Kwass, Michael
Michael Kwass is a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. He is author of Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberté, Égalité, Fiscalité (Cambridge, 2000), which received the David H. Pinkney Prize; and Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground (2014), which was awarded the J. Russell Major Prize, the Gilbert Chinard Prize, the Annibel Jenkins Prize, and the Oscar Kenshur Prize.