The study of the desire, acquisition, use, and disposal of goods and services, consumption, has grown enormously in recent years, and has been the subject of major historiographical debates: did the eighteenth century bring a consumer revolution? Was there a great divergence between East and West? Did the twentieth century see the triumph of global consumerism? Questions of consumption have become defining topics in all branches of history, from gender and labour history to political history and cultural studies. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption offers a timely overview of how our understanding of consumption in history has changed in the last generation, taking the reader from the ancient period to the twenty-first century. It includes chapters on Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America, brings together new perspectives, highlights cutting-edge areas of research, and offers a guide through the main historiographical developments. Contributions from leading historians examine the spaces of consumption, consumer politics, luxury and waste, nationalism and empire, the body, well-being, youth cultures and fashion.
The Handbook also showcases the different ways in which recent historians have approached the subject, from cultural and economic history, to political history and technology studies, including areas where multidisciplinary approaches have been especially fruitful.
Edited by:
Frank Trentmann (Professor of History Birkbeck College University of London)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 246mm,
Width: 171mm,
Spine: 43mm
Weight: 1.392kg
ISBN: 9780199561216
ISBN 10: 0199561214
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Pages: 720
Publication Date: 26 January 2012
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
A / AS level
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Frank Trentmann: Introduction Part I: Traditions 1: James Davidson: Citizen Consumers: The Athenian Democracy and the Origins of Western Consumption 2: Craig Clunas: Things in Between: Splendour and Excess in Ming China 3: Sara Pennell: Material Culture in Seventeenth-century 'Britain': the Matter of Domestic Consumption 4: Jeremy Prestholdt: Africa and the Global Lives of Things Part II: Dynamics and Diffusion 5: Michelle Craig McDonald: Transatlantic Consumption 6: Felipe Fernández-Armesto with the assistance of Benjamin Sacks: The Global Exchange of Food and Drugs 7: Prasannan Parthasarathi and Giorgio Riello: From India to the World: Cotton and Fashionability Part III: Rich and Poor 8: Maxine Berg: Luxury, the Luxury Trades, and the Roots of Industrial Growth: A Global Perspective 9: Dominique Margairaz: City and Country: Home, Possessions, and Diet, Western Europe 1600-1800 10: Carole Shammas: Standard of Living, Consumption, and Political Economy over the Past 500 Years Part IV: Places of Consumption 11: Evelyn Welch: Sites of Consumption in Early Modern Europe 12: Brian Cowan: Public Spaces, Knowledge, and Sociability 13: Heinz-Gerhard Haupt: Small Shops and Department Stores Part V: Technologies and Practices 14: Elizabeth Shove: Comfort and Convenience: Temporality and Practice 15: David E. Nye: Consumption of Energy 16: Joshua Goldstein: Waste 17: Lendol Calder: Saving and Spending 18: Alan Warde: Eating Part VI: State and Civil Society 19: Lawrence B. Glickman: Consumer Activism, Consumer Regimes, and the Consumer Movement: Rethinking the History of Consumer Politics in the United States 20: Karl Gerth: Consumption and Nationalism: China 21: S. Jonathan Wiesen: National Socialism and Consumption 22: Sheila Fitzpatrick: Things under Socialism: the Soviet Experience 23: Timothy Burke: Unexpected Subversions: Modern Colonialism, Globalization, and Commodity Culture 24: Andrew Gordon: Consumption, Consumerism, and Japanese Modernity 25: Matthew Hilton: Consumer movements 26: Frank Trentmann: The Politics of Everyday Life Part VII: Identities 27: Mike Savage: Status, Lifestyle, and Taste 28: Enrica Asquer: Domesticity and Beyond: Gender, Family, and Consumption in Modern Europe 29: Daniel Thomas Cook: Children's Consumption in History 30: Paolo Capuzzo: Youth and consumption 31: Christopher Breward: Fashion 32: Roberta Sassatelli: Self and Body 33: Avner Offer: Consumption and Well-Being
Frank Trentmann was educated at Hamburg University, the London School of Economics, and Harvard University. Before joining Birkbeck, he was Assistant Professor at Princeton University. He has also been the director of the Cultures of Consumption research programme, co-funded by the ESRC and the AHRC, Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute, and a visiting professor at Bielefeld University (Germany) and at the British Academy. His recent publications include Free Trade Nation: Consumption, Civil Society, and Commerce in Modern Britain (Oxford, 2008), which was awarded the Whitfield Prize by the Royal Historical Society.
Reviews for The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption
Constructing a handbook that can do any sort of justice to such a broad spectrum of ideas, practices and debates is a major achievement. Frank Trentmann is thus to be applauded for producing such a wide-ranging and useful book ... offers such an exciting and informative journey through the world of consumption. Jon Stobart, English Historical Review