Overview

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.

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9780521139595

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Reviews

'The Consumer Revolution, 1650-1800 is a well-written and well-conceived book that presents an up-to-date account of scholarship on the Consumer Revolution alongside an expert's critical account of that scholarship and where it needs to go in the future. Students and scholars will surely appreciate the overview of the field provided and the suggestions for more specialized reading.' Clare Crowston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 'For many years now, Michael Kwass has been one of the most innovative contributors to debates on consumer culture in early modern France. Now, his The Consumer Revolution provides a superbly comprehensive and intelligently nuanced account of the global impact of western consumerism before the industrial age, that remains nicely alert to comparisons with our own society.' Colin Jones, author of The Great Nation: France 1715-99 'Kwass's The Consumer Revolution brilliantly charts the remarkable economic, cultural, and political consequences of new consumer practices in this era of skyrocketing global trade, from the rise of calicoes, sugar, or tobacco to the shifting politics of fashion in the age of revolutions. Comprehensive, imaginative, and a pleasure to read.' William Sewell, University of Chicago '… insightful, engaging, and scholarly … This study draws on and offers discerning interpretations of a wide range of scholars and academic studies to provide perceptive analysis that will interest economic historians, sociologists, political scientists, and others. … Recommended.' T. E. Sullivan, Choice '… Kvass has produced a fluently readable introductory text to the consumer revolution of the 18th century. The book presents the current state of research on the basis of English and French-language literature in particular and critically discusses it. Above all, he adds a new accent with his stronger emphasis on politics in the history of consumption in the 18th century. The book is recommended to all those interested in this subject.' André Steiner, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft

'The Consumer Revolution, 1650-1800 is a well-written and well-conceived book that presents an up-to-date account of scholarship on the Consumer Revolution alongside an expert's critical account of that scholarship and where it needs to go in the future. Students and scholars will surely appreciate the overview of the field provided and the suggestions for more specialized reading.' Clare Crowston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 'For many years now, Michael Kwass has been one of the most innovative contributors to debates on consumer culture in early modern France. Now, his The Consumer Revolution provides a superbly comprehensive and intelligently nuanced account of the global impact of western consumerism before the industrial age, that remains nicely alert to comparisons with our own society.' Colin Jones, author of The Great Nation: France 1715-99 'Kwass's The Consumer Revolution brilliantly charts the remarkable economic, cultural, and political consequences of new consumer practices in this era of skyrocketing global trade, from the rise of calicoes, sugar, or tobacco to the shifting politics of fashion in the age of revolutions. Comprehensive, imaginative, and a pleasure to read.' William Sewell, University of Chicago

Author Information

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.

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