Introduction
Session Leader
- Dr Charles Walton, History Department
For discussion
- What does the history of consumption tell us about historical change in the seventeenth and eighteenth century that the history of production did not? Compare the two approaches.
- What was the Industrious Revolution?
- What are the merits and limitations of looking for a ‘birth’ of consumer society?
- Jean-Christophe Agnew, ‘Coming up for Air: Consumer Culture in Historical Perspective’, in John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds., Consumption and the World of Goods (London, 1993), pp. 19-39. (Multiple copies in the library.)
- John Brewer, ‘The Error of our Ways’, Lecture to the Cultures of Consumption Programme, Royal Society, 23 Sept. 2003. Working Paper No. 12. www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/publications.html (find your way to ‘working papers’ on the website)
- Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution. Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge, 2008).