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Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First – An Epic History of Goods and the Modern Material Life
“Empire of Things isn't just an insightful and surprisingly entertaining read, but a crucial one.”—NPR 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.
880 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
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December 30, 2024
A sprawling and thought provoking read on consumerism and its many facets. I found the narrative insightful but also at times obscured by statistics
Consumerism, the gulag replaced by Gucci
Taking into account that consumer society seems quite universal throughout history, with conspicuous consumption by the rich already being commented on by Seneca, the author takes on a lot in this massive book.
A fascinating read, which covered many topics and examples I would have liked to have explored further.
Some notes from reading Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First:
Consuming was like ascending an infinite ladder
- A typical German nowadays owns 10.000 things
- The 20th century has seen a quadrupling of CO2 emissions per person
- Consumerism, the gulag replaced by Gucci
Now that is a tag line I expect to see soon on Balenciaga T-shirt
- 345.000 ton of silver leaving the ports of Mexico in the 17th century annually to finance purchases of goods from China, including silk, porcelain, tea and many other desirable wares
- The whole freight capacity of all European merchant fleets at the start of the 18th century being the same as just two modern containerships
- VOC share of all Dutch commerce never exceeding 25%, with The Netherlands being dominant in salt and herring trade much closer at home in Europe
- Corn and sweet potatoes from The Americas leading to peasants in China switching to growing sugar, silk and tea for the market, since these crops required less work per calorie
- Urban renaissance Italy and Antwerp being as (un)equal as 2000’s America, with artisans and craftsmen having silver cutlery, linen chests, paintings and majolica plates in droves, a way to store value in a cash starved economy
- Cicero, Plato and the Church condemning luxury and equating it to sexual desire. The Venice senate passing over twelve decrees against conspicuous consumption, including forbidding more than 6 forks and knifes as wedding gifts
- Sumptuous laws being wide spread in Germany and Switzerland, with some towns fining 10% of their population annually on transgressions in respect to clothes or coaches regulations. In Beijing the same kind of regulation took of, with Chinese consumers obsessed with antiques
- Higher wages due to black death led to higher consumption for over four centuries in England
- Calico being banned at the start of the 18th century, leading to smuggling. A whole transformation from wool to linnen to cotton in a few centuries, followed by synthetic fibres after WW II.
- Fashion magazines already starting in 1776 in France
- Coffee not reaching UK in 1691 and 1693 due to piracy destroying fleets of the East India Company
- Adoption of money and consumer culture in Sierra Leone in 1800s is a fascinating story, with slave trade being replaced by cocoa and palm oil
- Goods and consumption universally used as a way of signalling culture, class and race
- Consumption as a force of innovation and economic development versus decadence and lack of restraint and refinement in materialism: a debate that persisted throughout the centuries
- In 1899 average spending power of British workers was double compared to 50 years earlier, but workers still often spend between 85-95% of income on basic necessities
- Imperialism leading to colonies buying the largest part of their finished goods imports from their coloniser
- Coffee consumption in 1914 being 50 times as high as in 1814
- In the early 20th century European and American produce, for instance wine and beer, gained status and where exported to colonies, a reversal from the appreciation of exotic goods in earlier centuries
- Cadbury advertising its product as typically British, instead as a produce of colonies, and France having Jeanne D’Arc chocolate bars, an early example of the power of marketing and trying to manipulate consumer perceptions
- In 1800 12% of Europeans lived in cities, in 1900 it was 41%, while in China from a similar starting point the population in cities amounted for only 6% in 1900
- Water usage of Parisians increasing tenfold during the 19th century
- 1946 launch of men hobby kits, and gardening, household appliances and movies capitalising on more free time of workers. Marketing turning these new things into regular things: They are not necessities but they are not luxuries either
- Average Europeans being an inch longer and having 25% more to spend in 1939 compared to 1919, speaking against purely economic reasons for totalitarian regimes rising. However entrenchment of luxuries in daily life led to growing unease about the depression, and movies showing better lives influenced consumption patterns (People had traded their freedom for a fridge and a car)
-Under consumption instead of over production being the framework of the New Deal approach towards the Depression
-Movies pick up consumerism as well: I don’t want love, cried Linda, I want consumer goods was included in one of the scripts.
- Indian census seeing a village as electrified when over 10% of villagers are connected to the electric net
- Warnings against credit and the loss of self restraint are as old as commercial life itself
- It are always others who tend to be extravagant
- In late Victorian pawnshops registered 30 million transactions per year, shedding a new light on frugality in the good old times.
- In the 2000’s Americans got more in debt relief than in social welfare payments
- Leisure reducing after 1970s, with high income free time reducing 4 hours per week from the 1990s in America
- Sunday opening of shops being normal before the 1940s
- Rise of teenagers and elderly as separate consumer classes, with the breakdown of the generationally shared home (Everyone is a consumer now)
- Public services and the consumer approach to citizens.
- Company towns and non-wage benefits to keep people engaged and loyal
- Wellness as a trend, and fair trade and the ethical consumer, who values local, regional and organic as monickers.
- Remittances and immigration as a major drive of changes in consumption
- Christ died for our prosperity, being the slogan of one of the largest pentecostal churches in Nigeria, who offered GBP 5.000 prized cruises to worshippers
- Waste decreasing in Kg per capita in New York between 1930 and 1985
- However, energy savings being funnelled into more lavish white goods and larger houses
Consumerism, the gulag replaced by Gucci
Taking into account that consumer society seems quite universal throughout history, with conspicuous consumption by the rich already being commented on by Seneca, the author takes on a lot in this massive book.
A fascinating read, which covered many topics and examples I would have liked to have explored further.
Some notes from reading Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First:
Consuming was like ascending an infinite ladder
- A typical German nowadays owns 10.000 things
- The 20th century has seen a quadrupling of CO2 emissions per person
- Consumerism, the gulag replaced by Gucci
Now that is a tag line I expect to see soon on Balenciaga T-shirt
- 345.000 ton of silver leaving the ports of Mexico in the 17th century annually to finance purchases of goods from China, including silk, porcelain, tea and many other desirable wares
- The whole freight capacity of all European merchant fleets at the start of the 18th century being the same as just two modern containerships
- VOC share of all Dutch commerce never exceeding 25%, with The Netherlands being dominant in salt and herring trade much closer at home in Europe
- Corn and sweet potatoes from The Americas leading to peasants in China switching to growing sugar, silk and tea for the market, since these crops required less work per calorie
- Urban renaissance Italy and Antwerp being as (un)equal as 2000’s America, with artisans and craftsmen having silver cutlery, linen chests, paintings and majolica plates in droves, a way to store value in a cash starved economy
- Cicero, Plato and the Church condemning luxury and equating it to sexual desire. The Venice senate passing over twelve decrees against conspicuous consumption, including forbidding more than 6 forks and knifes as wedding gifts
- Sumptuous laws being wide spread in Germany and Switzerland, with some towns fining 10% of their population annually on transgressions in respect to clothes or coaches regulations. In Beijing the same kind of regulation took of, with Chinese consumers obsessed with antiques
- Higher wages due to black death led to higher consumption for over four centuries in England
- Calico being banned at the start of the 18th century, leading to smuggling. A whole transformation from wool to linnen to cotton in a few centuries, followed by synthetic fibres after WW II.
- Fashion magazines already starting in 1776 in France
- Coffee not reaching UK in 1691 and 1693 due to piracy destroying fleets of the East India Company
- Adoption of money and consumer culture in Sierra Leone in 1800s is a fascinating story, with slave trade being replaced by cocoa and palm oil
- Goods and consumption universally used as a way of signalling culture, class and race
- Consumption as a force of innovation and economic development versus decadence and lack of restraint and refinement in materialism: a debate that persisted throughout the centuries
- In 1899 average spending power of British workers was double compared to 50 years earlier, but workers still often spend between 85-95% of income on basic necessities
- Imperialism leading to colonies buying the largest part of their finished goods imports from their coloniser
- Coffee consumption in 1914 being 50 times as high as in 1814
- In the early 20th century European and American produce, for instance wine and beer, gained status and where exported to colonies, a reversal from the appreciation of exotic goods in earlier centuries
- Cadbury advertising its product as typically British, instead as a produce of colonies, and France having Jeanne D’Arc chocolate bars, an early example of the power of marketing and trying to manipulate consumer perceptions
- In 1800 12% of Europeans lived in cities, in 1900 it was 41%, while in China from a similar starting point the population in cities amounted for only 6% in 1900
- Water usage of Parisians increasing tenfold during the 19th century
- 1946 launch of men hobby kits, and gardening, household appliances and movies capitalising on more free time of workers. Marketing turning these new things into regular things: They are not necessities but they are not luxuries either
- Average Europeans being an inch longer and having 25% more to spend in 1939 compared to 1919, speaking against purely economic reasons for totalitarian regimes rising. However entrenchment of luxuries in daily life led to growing unease about the depression, and movies showing better lives influenced consumption patterns (People had traded their freedom for a fridge and a car)
-Under consumption instead of over production being the framework of the New Deal approach towards the Depression
-Movies pick up consumerism as well: I don’t want love, cried Linda, I want consumer goods was included in one of the scripts.
- Indian census seeing a village as electrified when over 10% of villagers are connected to the electric net
- Warnings against credit and the loss of self restraint are as old as commercial life itself
- It are always others who tend to be extravagant
- In late Victorian pawnshops registered 30 million transactions per year, shedding a new light on frugality in the good old times.
- In the 2000’s Americans got more in debt relief than in social welfare payments
- Leisure reducing after 1970s, with high income free time reducing 4 hours per week from the 1990s in America
- Sunday opening of shops being normal before the 1940s
- Rise of teenagers and elderly as separate consumer classes, with the breakdown of the generationally shared home (Everyone is a consumer now)
- Public services and the consumer approach to citizens.
- Company towns and non-wage benefits to keep people engaged and loyal
- Wellness as a trend, and fair trade and the ethical consumer, who values local, regional and organic as monickers.
- Remittances and immigration as a major drive of changes in consumption
- Christ died for our prosperity, being the slogan of one of the largest pentecostal churches in Nigeria, who offered GBP 5.000 prized cruises to worshippers
- Waste decreasing in Kg per capita in New York between 1930 and 1985
- However, energy savings being funnelled into more lavish white goods and larger houses
January 11, 2018
Frank Trentmann is a successful British historian who hangs with some very good people in Europe and America and who has been sufficiently successful in his grantsmanship that he directs a substantial research program in "Cultures of Consumption". The intent of his new book - Empire of Things - is clear from its subtitle - "How we became a world of consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-first. So much for the overly focused narrow view of professional historians! At least he is taking a big swing and attempting to write a history of consumer society in the West (largely) over the past 500 years.
While the ambition is grand, I am conflicted over what to think about this book. There is much to recommend it but there are also lots of issues about this largely well done effort that detract from its overall impact and weaken the many insights in the book. To start with, it is a grand notion to focus on modern life as organized around our control by things. I have lived for a while in affluent areas and similar titles, such as "Republic of Stuff" easily come to mind in such areas. But then, one looks more closely and realizes that there has to be more of a story. It is not just "things" but how things fit into human society that is intriguing. Anyone who has read what Trentmann refers to as "commodity biographies" will note the problem. Histories of salt, cod, and screwdrivers come to mind - there are lots more. In his introductory chapters, Trentmann gets the idea out well. It is not just things but the consumption of things that is the ultimate target of inquiry. Production of things would be fine too, but that is a hugely crowded field itself, between the different takes from business history, economics, muckraking, and economic sociology.
Once it is clear that a history of consumption is about to unfold, the story (or stories) involved becomes much easier to divine. These include conflicts between religion and secular life, church and state, rich versus poor versus the emergent middle class, etc. Consumerism fits nicely into the rise of the west (apologies to MacNeil).
There is much more to it, however, and Trentmann does a good job at fleshing these ideas out. Consumerism is for most a modern development and often seen as a post-WWII phenomenon. He also has a good eye for interesting factoids - for example that it took 50 years after the invention of the tin can to develop a workable can opener. Even modern ideas, however, easily go back into the 18th and 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, one of the primary takeaways from this book is that in discussions of consumerism, most discussions that have any hope of influencing policy suffer from an historical myopia. Most views of consumerism however defined are forward rather than backward looking. Trentmann is not suggesting a switch backward looking studies but rather a recognition that long established historical patterns can be both resiliant and powerful in the current moment. This is a point well taken.
Trentmann also makes some good geographic points in the book. At the risk of oversimplifying, there is a tendency in discussions to treat the US as the standard for consumer societies, with other European (and non-European) states largely mimicking the US experience. His argument is that there were both general trends and locally specific trends. Britain, for example, is different from the US, even though there are parallels in the experiences of the two nations. The same could be said for other comparisons between the US and European societies. These analyses were fairly good and provided some insights for me. I think the point became more strained, however, the more the focus moved to non-European settings. His treatment of consumerism and colonialism was insightful, but later developments were less so.
Another focus of the book was on criticisms of the overly restricted focus of current debates on consumerism, both for academics and policy analysts. At several points in the book, Trentmann is basically arguing that "it is not that simple", in that multiple factors are involved and context and interactions among factors complicate simple explanations if one looks at actual behavior. This is in part a conceptual critique -- the problems that occupy policy makers are often more complex than commonly thought -- and in part a data problem, for example when changes in the consumption of one group of products that seems societally beneficial may be offset if the people involved do the wrong substitute activities. The appropriate unit of analysis may be a bundle of goods or a collection of policy choices rather than the individual goods or choices.
This line of attack is not always compelling. Of course, if one looks at the details of real situations, they will be more complex than simple two are three variable analyses. The issue is not that the "real world" is more complex than the academic or policy wonk claims. That is always the case. The real issue is how simplified a view of some issue must be for the explanation to be valuable to readers or policy makers. If you don't abstract a bit from reality, then you are left with reality - which we all have without the scholar. Any book or paper or model is trying to simplify a bit to make a point. To continually bang away at other scholars for being too oversimplified runs the risk a being too facile. I know that analyses oversimplify but I can still make some use of them anyway. It is easy to criticize -- and after a while one wonders what story Trentmann is selling besides "it's complicated". This comes across in the book's conclusion, which seems to emphasize the need for better discussions of our lifestyles and how very make use of or are used by consumption society. It is not a novel recommendation to think more about how you consume. I would appreciate more on how to think better about it.
Trentmann's approach could be characterized as relatively inductive - making an argument based on piecing together the various results of other studies and making general claims about how they fit together. As I suggested above, what bothers me about this is that the overarching integration is of necessity a bit thin and general. The alternative to this would be more deductive approaches that stake out an argument in advance and then provide support through argument and data. An alternative to Trentmann can be seen in Charles Taylor's book on the evolution of the West into a "Secular" society. He discusses his argument and then crafts an argument to support it - albeit one that recognizes considerable variance in the data. Taylor and Trentmann are covering the same period (1500-2000) and seem to have an overlap in content in the move from a society focused on God and the Church to one that is not so focused. I find Taylor's argument more interesting and compelling, even if I do not agree with all of it. The difference with Trentmann is that Taylor is looking at a change in the overall culture while Trentmann is interested in patterns of changes in individual orientations, such as obtained from surveys, rather than having a clear argument about an overall culture of consumerism. Another comparison would be between Trentmann and Gordon's recent history of the American standard of living. While Gordon is interested in the statistics around national growth and productivity, he does a "deep dive" into how the statistical data compare with what we know about how people actually lived. This comparison of economic data with historical data is rigorously followed through to arrive at his conclusions regarding reduced prospects for US economic growth going forward. Even though Gordon's subject matter overlaps with the concerns of Trentmann, Gordon makes a more focused arguments and backs it up with a combination of data analysis and historical data on the context of economic activity. While Trentmann's book is engaging and interesting, I am less convinced about its overall contribution because of its lack of focus. Don't get me wrong -- all three of these books are excellent. Gordon and Taylor, in my opinion, were more effective because of their focus, even with broad topics.
A final point - Trentmann's observations on trash and garbage are really interesting. The emerging worldwide system for processing old stuff and trash comes across as a parallel world to consumer society, but one that is suppressed in popular culture. This idea shows up in a number of post-modernist novels (Underworld), but could stand more explicit social science and historical study.
While the ambition is grand, I am conflicted over what to think about this book. There is much to recommend it but there are also lots of issues about this largely well done effort that detract from its overall impact and weaken the many insights in the book. To start with, it is a grand notion to focus on modern life as organized around our control by things. I have lived for a while in affluent areas and similar titles, such as "Republic of Stuff" easily come to mind in such areas. But then, one looks more closely and realizes that there has to be more of a story. It is not just "things" but how things fit into human society that is intriguing. Anyone who has read what Trentmann refers to as "commodity biographies" will note the problem. Histories of salt, cod, and screwdrivers come to mind - there are lots more. In his introductory chapters, Trentmann gets the idea out well. It is not just things but the consumption of things that is the ultimate target of inquiry. Production of things would be fine too, but that is a hugely crowded field itself, between the different takes from business history, economics, muckraking, and economic sociology.
Once it is clear that a history of consumption is about to unfold, the story (or stories) involved becomes much easier to divine. These include conflicts between religion and secular life, church and state, rich versus poor versus the emergent middle class, etc. Consumerism fits nicely into the rise of the west (apologies to MacNeil).
There is much more to it, however, and Trentmann does a good job at fleshing these ideas out. Consumerism is for most a modern development and often seen as a post-WWII phenomenon. He also has a good eye for interesting factoids - for example that it took 50 years after the invention of the tin can to develop a workable can opener. Even modern ideas, however, easily go back into the 18th and 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, one of the primary takeaways from this book is that in discussions of consumerism, most discussions that have any hope of influencing policy suffer from an historical myopia. Most views of consumerism however defined are forward rather than backward looking. Trentmann is not suggesting a switch backward looking studies but rather a recognition that long established historical patterns can be both resiliant and powerful in the current moment. This is a point well taken.
Trentmann also makes some good geographic points in the book. At the risk of oversimplifying, there is a tendency in discussions to treat the US as the standard for consumer societies, with other European (and non-European) states largely mimicking the US experience. His argument is that there were both general trends and locally specific trends. Britain, for example, is different from the US, even though there are parallels in the experiences of the two nations. The same could be said for other comparisons between the US and European societies. These analyses were fairly good and provided some insights for me. I think the point became more strained, however, the more the focus moved to non-European settings. His treatment of consumerism and colonialism was insightful, but later developments were less so.
Another focus of the book was on criticisms of the overly restricted focus of current debates on consumerism, both for academics and policy analysts. At several points in the book, Trentmann is basically arguing that "it is not that simple", in that multiple factors are involved and context and interactions among factors complicate simple explanations if one looks at actual behavior. This is in part a conceptual critique -- the problems that occupy policy makers are often more complex than commonly thought -- and in part a data problem, for example when changes in the consumption of one group of products that seems societally beneficial may be offset if the people involved do the wrong substitute activities. The appropriate unit of analysis may be a bundle of goods or a collection of policy choices rather than the individual goods or choices.
This line of attack is not always compelling. Of course, if one looks at the details of real situations, they will be more complex than simple two are three variable analyses. The issue is not that the "real world" is more complex than the academic or policy wonk claims. That is always the case. The real issue is how simplified a view of some issue must be for the explanation to be valuable to readers or policy makers. If you don't abstract a bit from reality, then you are left with reality - which we all have without the scholar. Any book or paper or model is trying to simplify a bit to make a point. To continually bang away at other scholars for being too oversimplified runs the risk a being too facile. I know that analyses oversimplify but I can still make some use of them anyway. It is easy to criticize -- and after a while one wonders what story Trentmann is selling besides "it's complicated". This comes across in the book's conclusion, which seems to emphasize the need for better discussions of our lifestyles and how very make use of or are used by consumption society. It is not a novel recommendation to think more about how you consume. I would appreciate more on how to think better about it.
Trentmann's approach could be characterized as relatively inductive - making an argument based on piecing together the various results of other studies and making general claims about how they fit together. As I suggested above, what bothers me about this is that the overarching integration is of necessity a bit thin and general. The alternative to this would be more deductive approaches that stake out an argument in advance and then provide support through argument and data. An alternative to Trentmann can be seen in Charles Taylor's book on the evolution of the West into a "Secular" society. He discusses his argument and then crafts an argument to support it - albeit one that recognizes considerable variance in the data. Taylor and Trentmann are covering the same period (1500-2000) and seem to have an overlap in content in the move from a society focused on God and the Church to one that is not so focused. I find Taylor's argument more interesting and compelling, even if I do not agree with all of it. The difference with Trentmann is that Taylor is looking at a change in the overall culture while Trentmann is interested in patterns of changes in individual orientations, such as obtained from surveys, rather than having a clear argument about an overall culture of consumerism. Another comparison would be between Trentmann and Gordon's recent history of the American standard of living. While Gordon is interested in the statistics around national growth and productivity, he does a "deep dive" into how the statistical data compare with what we know about how people actually lived. This comparison of economic data with historical data is rigorously followed through to arrive at his conclusions regarding reduced prospects for US economic growth going forward. Even though Gordon's subject matter overlaps with the concerns of Trentmann, Gordon makes a more focused arguments and backs it up with a combination of data analysis and historical data on the context of economic activity. While Trentmann's book is engaging and interesting, I am less convinced about its overall contribution because of its lack of focus. Don't get me wrong -- all three of these books are excellent. Gordon and Taylor, in my opinion, were more effective because of their focus, even with broad topics.
A final point - Trentmann's observations on trash and garbage are really interesting. The emerging worldwide system for processing old stuff and trash comes across as a parallel world to consumer society, but one that is suppressed in popular culture. This idea shows up in a number of post-modernist novels (Underworld), but could stand more explicit social science and historical study.
July 4, 2018
‘Empire of Things’ is a heavy book, both literally and figuratively, which is why it took me so many months to read. As usual in such situations, though, getting through the latter half took much less time than the first. Trentmann is clear from the start that he cannot hope to cover the whole global history of consumerism in all its immensity. Nonetheless, he makes a very impressive effort and covers a huge amount of ground, giving the reader a great deal to think about. Perhaps the defining feature of the book is its determination to go beyond accepted clichés of consumption and provide a more nuanced view. This results in an emphasis on seemingly neglected perspectives, for example the under-discussed roles of the state and consumer groups in promoting credit and consumer goods. As a result, the roles of corporations and marketing are given less space, although marketing is not neglected. One notable absence, in my view, was consideration of transnational companies seeking monopolistic control over consumption, such as amazon. However they are such a recent phenomenon that it’s probably too early to include them in such a resolutely historical book.
Consumerism is such a gargantuan topic that a book of this nature could easily slide into unstructured confusion. That definitely does not happen and structural rigor persists throughout. This makes it remarkably easy to flick through and rediscover points of particular interest – vital in such an epic tome. And there are many such points. I won’t go into all that caught my eye in detail, merely pick out those that were especially new and intriguing to me. This should also provide an idea of how much material has been gathered and synthesised in such a major piece of research.
The initial chapters of ‘Empire of Things’ proceed chronologically. Trentmann considers the process by which more material objects came to be owned in Western households and the role played in this process by imperialism. I liked the concept that adding rooms to the home created demand for items; the separation of kitchen and living room in poorer European homes was a Victorian development. Rather ironically, this is now being reversed in the UK by the construction of ever-smaller urban flats which re-combine the two. Trentmann comments on page 675 that Britain is unique in this shrinking-home trend, a symptom of our deeply dysfunctional housing market. Another such symptom is covered in the section on household budgets:
Although consumerism is generally equated with, or considered a subset of, capitalism, Trentmann argues that this need not be the case. He cites the deployment of consumer goods in communist, socialist, and fascist states, suggesting that it is a much wider phenomenon. As the book is a historical rather than theoretical analysis, the meaning of this isn’t really covered. Seeing consumerism as pan-ideological seems to elevate it to the same mystical heights as technological change, which different political ideologies explain in very different ways. The process by which wants are created and evolve into needs is likewise explicable through the framing of markets, state intervention, biological inevitability (which usually employs market assumptions), etc. As with technological change, it is far easier to trace the evolution of a single product than to suggest a unified underlying mechanism for technological development or the growth of consumerism. I’m not sure that these questions had entered my mind to any great extent before, making Trentmann’s emphasis on consumerism as a process in itself valuable and (to me) novel. Another question that is raised much more explicitly and that doesn’t have an unequivocal answer is whether education and healthcare are consumer goods. The book intermittently treats them as such and sees them as having key roles in the development of consumer identity. However the extent to which they are provided or experienced in the same way as material goods depends on the specifics of national and local institutions.
Inevitably, ‘Empire of Things’ has much to say about class, especially in the chapters that examine leisure pursuits. Chapter 7 reads well with Social Class in the 21st Century, which also suggested that the spread of mass culture has changed Britain’s class system without undermining it. As Trentmann describes:
Mike Savage’s Social Class in the 21st Century develops this same point a little further by suggesting a class distinction in terms of opinionated media consumption. Superiority is achieved through formation and justification of views on music, TV, films, etc. Different classes may watch the same stuff, so perhaps it is confidence in one’s own taste that distinguishes them. I suspect this involves an emphasis on irony when consuming ‘low’ culture. I’m definitely guilty of this myself: much as I love action films for their entertaining spectacle, I also can’t resist analysing them as social allegories. On another personal note, this definitely rang true for me:
The internet has undoubtedly replaced the fashion magazines that I bought in my teens, but it has supplemented and boosted my overall reading. I consider social media to be a self-curated magazine, while online book reviews, library catalogues, and goodreads have systematised and enabled my pre-existing voracious reading.
Although Trentmann inevitably focuses on America, Western Europe, and Japan, the areas with the longest history of consumerism and thus the best data, ‘Empire of Things’ makes concerted efforts to include case studies from the rest of the world as well. As I’m less familiar with consumption in China and Japan, chapters examining their consumer cultures in great detail provided interesting insights. In Japan, the adoption of TVs was partially catalysed by the popularity of sumo wrestling. Throughout the book, though, Trentmann is wary of simple explanations, reductive casuality, and overgeneralisation:
Within such international comparisons, it is repeatedly pointed out that concerns, even panics, about excessive consumerism and Americanisation are not new. They began hundreds of years ago and have recurred periodically ever since. This does not mean that they are dismissed or ignored by the analysis, merely that they are placed in a historical context. One point that I found especially striking is that equating consumerism with individualism is an exclusively Western tendency. Elsewhere, consumption is embedded in the gift economy: exchanges of new and second-hand goods between friends, family, and other social networks. This could be one reason why moral concerns around consuming are more nuanced in Asia:
Trentmann manages to walk a very fine line by explaining both the benefits and the huge environmental and social costs of consumerism. The writing style carefully minimises sweeping value judgments and portrays complexity and variation. Given the centrality of consumerism to late capitalism (a term that the book avoids entirely), there are wider insights into global political variation to be found:
In the latter half of the book, Trentmann takes a thematic rather than chronological approach. The chapter on credit and saving is fascinating and reads well with David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, likewise the histories of fair trade and company towns. I have a long term interest in model industrial towns, so was almost piqued by Trentmann’s ingenious idea that cars undermined them as it had somehow not occurred to me before. Yet now it seems obvious: the monopoly provision of leisure activities in a company-controlled space will obviously become less appealing when employees can easily travel elsewhere. I also appreciated this more controversial, yet credible suggestion:
I must admit, I was sceptical of the claim that South Korea is one of the most equal societies in the world. Inequality is by no means easy to measure. According to OECD data, though, South Korea's GINI coefficient was 0.295 in 2015 (1=perfect inequality). That’s hardly exceptional. By comparison, in the UK it was 0.36, Germany 0.293, America 0.391, and Iceland 0.246. Still, questioning the assumption that inequality automatically drives consumption is reasonable, as it rests on dubious assertions. Rising inequality definitely doesn't seem to be encouraging the Western Millennial generation to consume excessively, which is why we're so often accused of 'killing' various industries.
By far the most alarming chapter of the book is on waste. Nonetheless, it tries to get beyond the horrifying figures on how much is thrown away to explain why so little is re-used:
I was also delighted to learn that the French for dustbin, une poubelle, actually comes from a Monsieur Poubelle. A prefect of the Seine, he introduced the concept of municipal waste collections to Paris in 1883.
In the concluding epilogue, Trentmann sheds his dispassionate tone somewhat in order to throw cold water on the potential of smart tech, sharing, and the ‘experience economy’ to meaningfully reduce consumption. It has always seemed absurdly counter-intuitive to me that consuming more technology will cause us to consume less. He also makes the point that rising numbers of single person households far outweigh efficiency gains from recycling/sharing/dematerialisation, a widely ignored and uncomfortable truth in the West.
To my surprise, given the sparse references to climate change in the rest of the book, Trentmann finishes by quietly advocating carbon pricing and condemning political disingenuousness. Political discourse tends to treat consumerism as an inevitable, homogenous, and linear phenomenon. ‘Empire of Things’ makes a strong argument that it is a great deal more complicated, contested, and interesting than that. Reading this book is quite hard work, but the rewards are considerable. It has a great deal to say about work, leisure, economic development, and the politics of consumption, both now and in the past, providing valuable nuance and context for current debates.
Consumerism is such a gargantuan topic that a book of this nature could easily slide into unstructured confusion. That definitely does not happen and structural rigor persists throughout. This makes it remarkably easy to flick through and rediscover points of particular interest – vital in such an epic tome. And there are many such points. I won’t go into all that caught my eye in detail, merely pick out those that were especially new and intriguing to me. This should also provide an idea of how much material has been gathered and synthesised in such a major piece of research.
The initial chapters of ‘Empire of Things’ proceed chronologically. Trentmann considers the process by which more material objects came to be owned in Western households and the role played in this process by imperialism. I liked the concept that adding rooms to the home created demand for items; the separation of kitchen and living room in poorer European homes was a Victorian development. Rather ironically, this is now being reversed in the UK by the construction of ever-smaller urban flats which re-combine the two. Trentmann comments on page 675 that Britain is unique in this shrinking-home trend, a symptom of our deeply dysfunctional housing market. Another such symptom is covered in the section on household budgets:
Spending on recreation and culture has indeed doubled in the past half-century – more books are published than ever before. But so has spending on housing. In the half-century since the 1950s, the share of private expenditure devoted to housing, routine maintenance, gas, and electricity has doubled in Norway (from 15% to 30%) and tripled in France (from 7.5% to 23%). If housing, transport, and food are put together, they ate up the same amount of the household budget in 2007 as they did in 1958: 60%.
Although consumerism is generally equated with, or considered a subset of, capitalism, Trentmann argues that this need not be the case. He cites the deployment of consumer goods in communist, socialist, and fascist states, suggesting that it is a much wider phenomenon. As the book is a historical rather than theoretical analysis, the meaning of this isn’t really covered. Seeing consumerism as pan-ideological seems to elevate it to the same mystical heights as technological change, which different political ideologies explain in very different ways. The process by which wants are created and evolve into needs is likewise explicable through the framing of markets, state intervention, biological inevitability (which usually employs market assumptions), etc. As with technological change, it is far easier to trace the evolution of a single product than to suggest a unified underlying mechanism for technological development or the growth of consumerism. I’m not sure that these questions had entered my mind to any great extent before, making Trentmann’s emphasis on consumerism as a process in itself valuable and (to me) novel. Another question that is raised much more explicitly and that doesn’t have an unequivocal answer is whether education and healthcare are consumer goods. The book intermittently treats them as such and sees them as having key roles in the development of consumer identity. However the extent to which they are provided or experienced in the same way as material goods depends on the specifics of national and local institutions.
Inevitably, ‘Empire of Things’ has much to say about class, especially in the chapters that examine leisure pursuits. Chapter 7 reads well with Social Class in the 21st Century, which also suggested that the spread of mass culture has changed Britain’s class system without undermining it. As Trentmann describes:
Instead of unifying classes, the spread of mass media, TV and music equipment has, arguably, facilitated greater pluralism. This is partly the result of access to multiple genres via radio, TV, and, most recently, the internet, and partly because of more domestic enjoyment. Participation in ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture used to be visible: a public act. With TV, all classes can watch a mix of programmes without fear of losing status. This does not mean that class has gone away, however. Rather, its operating mode has shifted, from taste to degrees of participation. […] The new strategy of distinction is no longer to erect barriers to protect one’s class from hoi polloi but to become an ‘omnivore’ and mix as many styles as possible – to listen to working class bands and world music as well as string quartets; to watch TV soaps as well as Shakespeare on stage. Paradoxically, then, letting go of the claim to own culture has helped the middle class to consolidate its sense of superiority.
Mike Savage’s Social Class in the 21st Century develops this same point a little further by suggesting a class distinction in terms of opinionated media consumption. Superiority is achieved through formation and justification of views on music, TV, films, etc. Different classes may watch the same stuff, so perhaps it is confidence in one’s own taste that distinguishes them. I suspect this involves an emphasis on irony when consuming ‘low’ culture. I’m definitely guilty of this myself: much as I love action films for their entertaining spectacle, I also can’t resist analysing them as social allegories. On another personal note, this definitely rang true for me:
It is debatable whether the internet and other new media is killing reading as a pastime. Magazine-reading has declined, but books are more popular than ever. In the Netherlands and Britain, heavy internet users tend to be more (not less) active readers.
The internet has undoubtedly replaced the fashion magazines that I bought in my teens, but it has supplemented and boosted my overall reading. I consider social media to be a self-curated magazine, while online book reviews, library catalogues, and goodreads have systematised and enabled my pre-existing voracious reading.
Although Trentmann inevitably focuses on America, Western Europe, and Japan, the areas with the longest history of consumerism and thus the best data, ‘Empire of Things’ makes concerted efforts to include case studies from the rest of the world as well. As I’m less familiar with consumption in China and Japan, chapters examining their consumer cultures in great detail provided interesting insights. In Japan, the adoption of TVs was partially catalysed by the popularity of sumo wrestling. Throughout the book, though, Trentmann is wary of simple explanations, reductive casuality, and overgeneralisation:
The search for contrasts between ‘East’ and ‘West’ naturally leads to the discovery of unique characteristics. But there are intriguing parallels between them as well as differences. One shared pattern has been the asymmetrical take-up of consumer technologies. In 1960s Japan, families bought a TV but made do without their own flush toilet. This was not miles away from the story in many poor homes in British cities in the 1950s, nor so different from Americans’ preference for soft furniture and crystal glasses over sanitation and insulation in the late eighteenth century. […] That many cosmetic items sold once they were marketed in little sachets does not reflect some peculiarly Indian trait. Chocolates and other small luxuries were sold in similarly small packets in the first vending machines in early-twentieth-century Europe. These are characteristics of many emerging mass markets where the poor are enjoying rising but limited discretionary spending.
Within such international comparisons, it is repeatedly pointed out that concerns, even panics, about excessive consumerism and Americanisation are not new. They began hundreds of years ago and have recurred periodically ever since. This does not mean that they are dismissed or ignored by the analysis, merely that they are placed in a historical context. One point that I found especially striking is that equating consumerism with individualism is an exclusively Western tendency. Elsewhere, consumption is embedded in the gift economy: exchanges of new and second-hand goods between friends, family, and other social networks. This could be one reason why moral concerns around consuming are more nuanced in Asia:
Asian debates about luxury lack the emotional heat and shrill paranoia of those in the West. Wealth and possessions do not carry the same stigma of sin for Buddhists or Hindus as they do for many Christians. Nationalism and social solidarity provide a shared moral script. As long as consumers act responsibly, affluence is not a problem.
Trentmann manages to walk a very fine line by explaining both the benefits and the huge environmental and social costs of consumerism. The writing style carefully minimises sweeping value judgments and portrays complexity and variation. Given the centrality of consumerism to late capitalism (a term that the book avoids entirely), there are wider insights into global political variation to be found:
Communist China offers an extreme version of the symbiosis between consumerism and authoritarianism. Instead of greater choice in the shopping mall creating a demand for choice at the ballot box – the Anglo-Saxon democratic trajectory – China has proven the state’s ability to co-opt consumers. Consumer politics in China takes the form of a stable non-aggression pact. The regime guarantees its subjects greater comfort and consumer protection. In exchange, consumers direct their anger at fraudulent shopkeepers and property speculators, and agree not to invade the political domain controlled by the Party. For both, fear of upheaval cements the alliance.
In the latter half of the book, Trentmann takes a thematic rather than chronological approach. The chapter on credit and saving is fascinating and reads well with David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years, likewise the histories of fair trade and company towns. I have a long term interest in model industrial towns, so was almost piqued by Trentmann’s ingenious idea that cars undermined them as it had somehow not occurred to me before. Yet now it seems obvious: the monopoly provision of leisure activities in a company-controlled space will obviously become less appealing when employees can easily travel elsewhere. I also appreciated this more controversial, yet credible suggestion:
…High inequality has prompted higher saving, not spending escapades. Arguably, rising equality explains emulative consumption better than inequality, since it produces extra pressure to buy goods in order to keep ahead of those catching up. This was precisely the conclusion Alexis de Tocqueville took away from his tour of democratic America in 1831-2, when he compared it to his native, more stratified France. […] Luxury goods thrive in South Korea, not in spite of the fact, but perhaps because it is one of the most equal societies in the world.
I must admit, I was sceptical of the claim that South Korea is one of the most equal societies in the world. Inequality is by no means easy to measure. According to OECD data, though, South Korea's GINI coefficient was 0.295 in 2015 (1=perfect inequality). That’s hardly exceptional. By comparison, in the UK it was 0.36, Germany 0.293, America 0.391, and Iceland 0.246. Still, questioning the assumption that inequality automatically drives consumption is reasonable, as it rests on dubious assertions. Rising inequality definitely doesn't seem to be encouraging the Western Millennial generation to consume excessively, which is why we're so often accused of 'killing' various industries.
By far the most alarming chapter of the book is on waste. Nonetheless, it tries to get beyond the horrifying figures on how much is thrown away to explain why so little is re-used:
In light of today’s concerns about landfill sites and pollution, it is tempting to extol a Victorian mentality of thrift and recycling. However, all this recycling probably says more about infrastructures than minds or habits. Rag pickers and second-hand dealers existed because people were buying new, increasingly cheap and mass-manufactured clothes and getting rid of old items rather than recycling them into napkins or curtains, as the Pepys family still did in the 1660s. […] Things were recovered only where systems of recovery were in place. Without them, consumers picked their own methods of disposal.
I was also delighted to learn that the French for dustbin, une poubelle, actually comes from a Monsieur Poubelle. A prefect of the Seine, he introduced the concept of municipal waste collections to Paris in 1883.
In the concluding epilogue, Trentmann sheds his dispassionate tone somewhat in order to throw cold water on the potential of smart tech, sharing, and the ‘experience economy’ to meaningfully reduce consumption. It has always seemed absurdly counter-intuitive to me that consuming more technology will cause us to consume less. He also makes the point that rising numbers of single person households far outweigh efficiency gains from recycling/sharing/dematerialisation, a widely ignored and uncomfortable truth in the West.
What such [optimistic] prognoses tend to ignore is what people do with the resources freed up by ‘smart’ technologies. ICT, for example, has encouraged home-working and home delivery, cutting down commuting time and multiple trips to shops. These direct reductions would be significant if people stayed at home and enjoyed the time and money saved without changing anything else in their lives. The environmental gains quickly disappear, however, if they are spent on additional electronic items, a new set of clothes, or an extra holiday. Innovative ‘smart’ technologies have been a mixed blessing so far, as the spread of new software and innovative apps to phones, computers, and, increasingly, washing machines and other appliances is accelerating the product-cycle, making machines that worked perfectly fine in a less smart environment suddenly obsolescent.
To my surprise, given the sparse references to climate change in the rest of the book, Trentmann finishes by quietly advocating carbon pricing and condemning political disingenuousness. Political discourse tends to treat consumerism as an inevitable, homogenous, and linear phenomenon. ‘Empire of Things’ makes a strong argument that it is a great deal more complicated, contested, and interesting than that. Reading this book is quite hard work, but the rewards are considerable. It has a great deal to say about work, leisure, economic development, and the politics of consumption, both now and in the past, providing valuable nuance and context for current debates.
October 23, 2017
I abandoned this after reading about a third of it -- half of that third was at the beginning a quarter in the middle, and a quarter at the end. Trentmann begins by saying (on p. 6) that one of his goals is to "explain how consumption evolved the way it did over the last five centuries." We quickly find out that it evolved differently in and within different countries and that no one has valid ideas to explain how it developed in even one of those places. This is also his general conclusion in the last chapter, and I find it difficult to see this as an explanation of consumption. You explain something when you can predict it, and Trentmann quite rightly makes no claim that either he or anyone else can do that.
The scope of Trentmann's project was simply too ambitious. The book has 690 pages of text, and could profitably have been expanded to 6,900. Sweeping generalizations are made without evidence, or with a footnote that doesn't include references to many studies. Most seriously, the role of technology, especially communications technology, is ignored, the relationship of disposable income to consumption is (as at least one other reviewer here has noted) scarcely touched on, and while he discusses carbon emissions and how to reduce them there seems to be no discussion of carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems. He does conclude that carbon pricing has to include the cost of dealing with environmental consequences, but then argues that this won't change people's consumption.
Well, I was going to give this a 2, but writing this has persuaded me that Trentmann does make one important fact clear as crystal -- we really have little idea of what motivates and maintains consumption, and most of our thinking about it is based on exploded theories or moral assumptions that have never been empirically validated. So a 3 it is. It doesn't get a 4 because the scope of the book is so wide that the text is continually jumping unhelpfully from one topic to the next.
Seriously, I think that if Trentmann were to give a radio talk on this topic and then publish it, we would then have a guide to how to approach this book. It worked with John Ralston Saul. His The Unconscious Civilization, which started as a radio talk, was much harder-hitting and pithier than his other work.
The scope of Trentmann's project was simply too ambitious. The book has 690 pages of text, and could profitably have been expanded to 6,900. Sweeping generalizations are made without evidence, or with a footnote that doesn't include references to many studies. Most seriously, the role of technology, especially communications technology, is ignored, the relationship of disposable income to consumption is (as at least one other reviewer here has noted) scarcely touched on, and while he discusses carbon emissions and how to reduce them there seems to be no discussion of carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems. He does conclude that carbon pricing has to include the cost of dealing with environmental consequences, but then argues that this won't change people's consumption.
Well, I was going to give this a 2, but writing this has persuaded me that Trentmann does make one important fact clear as crystal -- we really have little idea of what motivates and maintains consumption, and most of our thinking about it is based on exploded theories or moral assumptions that have never been empirically validated. So a 3 it is. It doesn't get a 4 because the scope of the book is so wide that the text is continually jumping unhelpfully from one topic to the next.
Seriously, I think that if Trentmann were to give a radio talk on this topic and then publish it, we would then have a guide to how to approach this book. It worked with John Ralston Saul. His The Unconscious Civilization, which started as a radio talk, was much harder-hitting and pithier than his other work.
August 14, 2016
A very well-researched, comprehensive history of consumption and consumer culture. In his introduction, he explains that he plans to break from traditional studies of consumerism/consumer culture: temporally (by tracing its origins back much earlier--to the Renaissance--and focusing on its evolution across time in a nonlinear path influenced by changes in politics, culture, society, and connectivity), geographically (by not reducing it to an American phenomenon exported abroad and surveying the diverse and hybrid consumer cultures across countries), and socially (by not reducing the focus to the world of advertising, markets, and the individual and instead looking at the social and political forces that shape consumption patterns).
The last point is particularly important to Trentmann. As he explains in his conclusion, "The rise of consumption entailed greater choice but it also involved new habits and conventions, and these were social and political outcomes, not the result of individual preferences. Domestic comfort, exotic holidays, eating and drinking routines, shopping hours, what it means to be clean, fit and fashionable: these and many other aspects of our lifestyles are the historical product of social norms, expectations and arrangements." If we are to chart a path toward more sustainable (and equitable) consumption, we need to get past the illusion that consumption is a produce of individual choice alone, past an individual-centric view of "lifestyle"; we need to understand the forces shaping these choices and lifestyles and engage in politics and policymaking to effect change.
The book is very long (an almost textbook-like slog), and it's easy to forget what exactly he's arguing while reading it because you are constantly being bombarded with facts and stories. The conclusion ties things together nicely, but I would have liked him to make a greater effort to tie each chapter to the next and foreground the argument throughout.
3.5 stars
The last point is particularly important to Trentmann. As he explains in his conclusion, "The rise of consumption entailed greater choice but it also involved new habits and conventions, and these were social and political outcomes, not the result of individual preferences. Domestic comfort, exotic holidays, eating and drinking routines, shopping hours, what it means to be clean, fit and fashionable: these and many other aspects of our lifestyles are the historical product of social norms, expectations and arrangements." If we are to chart a path toward more sustainable (and equitable) consumption, we need to get past the illusion that consumption is a produce of individual choice alone, past an individual-centric view of "lifestyle"; we need to understand the forces shaping these choices and lifestyles and engage in politics and policymaking to effect change.
The book is very long (an almost textbook-like slog), and it's easy to forget what exactly he's arguing while reading it because you are constantly being bombarded with facts and stories. The conclusion ties things together nicely, but I would have liked him to make a greater effort to tie each chapter to the next and foreground the argument throughout.
3.5 stars
November 9, 2017
Frank Trentmann hat ein wirklich ansprechendes Buch verfasst. Es beginnt mit einem thematisch passenden und zum Nachdenken anregendem Gedicht. Dem folgt eine Einleitung, in der die Inhalte und Schwerpunkte des Buches verdeutlicht werden. Das stimmt auf das Kommende ein und bietet gleich zu Beginn Orientierung. Der Autor begleitet die Lesenden durch den Text und verfolgt konsequent und souverän den roten Faden.
Das Buch gliedert sich in zwei Teile und die Vorgehensweise des Autors wird an geeigneten Stellen erläutert. Gerade bei einem so umfassenden Text, ist das eine willkommene Unterstützung.
Zum Inhalt: Entstehung und Prozess von Konsumkulturen werden mittels vieler guter Beispiele veranschaulicht. So erfahren die Lesenden z. B. die Bedeutung von Gabeln, was es mit "Luxusgesetzen" auf sich hat und wieso gelbe Lederstiefel zum Tode führen konnten. Dabei bereisen die Lesenden die verschiedenen Kontinente und werden, dank des geschickten Schreibstils des Autors, in die Zeit von vor über 500 Jahren versetzt. Diese Reisen verdeutlichen gesellschaftliche und kulturelle Wandel und deren Einfluss auf den Konsum. Karten,
Diagramme und Grafiken unterstützen anschaulich das Verständnis für wirtschaftliche Prozesse und Entwicklungen. Frank Trentmann gelingt es, das Tempo der Verbreitung von Konsum spürbar deutlich zu machen. Es wird nachvollziehbar, wie aus luxuriösen Exoten in kürzester Zeit Alltagsdinge wurden.
Ein spannender Exkurs zum Thema Identitätsbildung in unmittelbarem Zusammenhang mit Konsum ist nur ein Beispiel für viele weitere. Dabei führt der Autor immer wieder zum Hauptthema zurück und schafft so ein ganzheitliches Bild.
Des Weiteren wird mit gängigen Klischees, wie dem der "Amerikannisierung" Europas, aufgeräumt. Frank Trentmann scheut sich nicht, sich mit der vernichtenden Kritik an den Konsum auseinanderzusetzen. Schlussendlich entwickelt er eine ganz eigene Perspektive, die zeigt, was getan werden muss.
Das Buch gliedert sich in zwei Teile und die Vorgehensweise des Autors wird an geeigneten Stellen erläutert. Gerade bei einem so umfassenden Text, ist das eine willkommene Unterstützung.
Zum Inhalt: Entstehung und Prozess von Konsumkulturen werden mittels vieler guter Beispiele veranschaulicht. So erfahren die Lesenden z. B. die Bedeutung von Gabeln, was es mit "Luxusgesetzen" auf sich hat und wieso gelbe Lederstiefel zum Tode führen konnten. Dabei bereisen die Lesenden die verschiedenen Kontinente und werden, dank des geschickten Schreibstils des Autors, in die Zeit von vor über 500 Jahren versetzt. Diese Reisen verdeutlichen gesellschaftliche und kulturelle Wandel und deren Einfluss auf den Konsum. Karten,
Diagramme und Grafiken unterstützen anschaulich das Verständnis für wirtschaftliche Prozesse und Entwicklungen. Frank Trentmann gelingt es, das Tempo der Verbreitung von Konsum spürbar deutlich zu machen. Es wird nachvollziehbar, wie aus luxuriösen Exoten in kürzester Zeit Alltagsdinge wurden.
Ein spannender Exkurs zum Thema Identitätsbildung in unmittelbarem Zusammenhang mit Konsum ist nur ein Beispiel für viele weitere. Dabei führt der Autor immer wieder zum Hauptthema zurück und schafft so ein ganzheitliches Bild.
Des Weiteren wird mit gängigen Klischees, wie dem der "Amerikannisierung" Europas, aufgeräumt. Frank Trentmann scheut sich nicht, sich mit der vernichtenden Kritik an den Konsum auseinanderzusetzen. Schlussendlich entwickelt er eine ganz eigene Perspektive, die zeigt, was getan werden muss.
February 28, 2017
Dealing with the elephant in the room first - this book is huge and dense and scary, don't let it put you off! It is a remarkable work that provides an amazing insight into how people have lived, what they treasured and how tastes have changed. It is remarkable not just how much changes, but also how much stays the same.
Part 1 of the book provides a chronological view of material possessions which occasionally gets bogged down and over-whelming, but stick with it. Part 2 takes a thematic approach drawing on the lessons of part 1 and looking at topics such as products for children and the elderly, nationalism/localism, waste & recycling and religions & welfare.
It's very fascinating and gives you a lot of information to process.
As an aside - the cover is beautiful. Well done to whoever designed The Empire of Things to be such a pretty "thing" itself.
Part 1 of the book provides a chronological view of material possessions which occasionally gets bogged down and over-whelming, but stick with it. Part 2 takes a thematic approach drawing on the lessons of part 1 and looking at topics such as products for children and the elderly, nationalism/localism, waste & recycling and religions & welfare.
It's very fascinating and gives you a lot of information to process.
As an aside - the cover is beautiful. Well done to whoever designed The Empire of Things to be such a pretty "thing" itself.
non-fiction-to-read
March 22, 2016yowza.
$25 for the kindle edition?
but too big to carry on the bus in dead tree :(
$25 for the kindle edition?
but too big to carry on the bus in dead tree :(
April 30, 2016
"Reflections on what we own and how it owns us."
An amazing book that explores history and countries from a consumers points of view, revealing a lot more about humanity than I would ever have expected. It is like putting on the most unusual filter or tinted colour glasses and seeing a world makedly exposed to its desires and wants removing morality and political agendas to show how even the most powerful of ideologies bend to the will of its consumers and how that feeds all our need and inequities, driving us into the constant need for the new, the better, the bigger, the more powerful, the thing that declares who we are, our status or our lack of it.
An exposition of how we have grown in apatites, and how we have acquired those things we value and at what cost to us and to those that provide them. How this items have changed our society and brought change to others in the farthest corners of the world.
Explaining the conundrum of a consumerist communist China, the fall of the eastern block by the disillusionment of the masses in not being able to acquire like other societies and pushing for change for freedom to buy the same toys we buy.
It reveals the different points of views and morals different societies have had on lending and how it has grown to such a degree it threatens the very system that created it, while being the lifeline to many of our wants and the force behind industry and construction.
A must if you are interested in history and humanity, it will remove a lot of preconceptions and will reveal the consumer in all of us; buy this book, you need it you want it.
An amazing book that explores history and countries from a consumers points of view, revealing a lot more about humanity than I would ever have expected. It is like putting on the most unusual filter or tinted colour glasses and seeing a world makedly exposed to its desires and wants removing morality and political agendas to show how even the most powerful of ideologies bend to the will of its consumers and how that feeds all our need and inequities, driving us into the constant need for the new, the better, the bigger, the more powerful, the thing that declares who we are, our status or our lack of it.
An exposition of how we have grown in apatites, and how we have acquired those things we value and at what cost to us and to those that provide them. How this items have changed our society and brought change to others in the farthest corners of the world.
Explaining the conundrum of a consumerist communist China, the fall of the eastern block by the disillusionment of the masses in not being able to acquire like other societies and pushing for change for freedom to buy the same toys we buy.
It reveals the different points of views and morals different societies have had on lending and how it has grown to such a degree it threatens the very system that created it, while being the lifeline to many of our wants and the force behind industry and construction.
A must if you are interested in history and humanity, it will remove a lot of preconceptions and will reveal the consumer in all of us; buy this book, you need it you want it.
June 1, 2016
I'm conflicted; this book wasn't bad by any means but was just too long, there was too much what I would consider ancillary stuff packed in. I was interested to learn about human history as relates to "stuff"/our enduring love of items, and it covered some of that, but also anything ever that could be considered consumption, like eating and houses and health care and basically everything? So it was diluted things too much, I think I would have enjoyed a more focused analysis of just one aspect of consumption. That being said, it's impressive in its comprehensiveness, so I will stick with 3 stars.
June 24, 2019
Upon discovering this book, a globe trotting history spanning view of consumers and consumer culture, I was excited. Placing current events through the lens of history is an appealing prospect, and this subject is doubly interesting.
The book starts off far back in history, detailing the gradual transition to where human economic activity reached the level that would make consumerism even possible. I love that the author was able to take European, Asian, and Indian examples, which makes for a more well balanced look at our topic.
However as the book went on, I kept loosing track of where I was in the grand history of consumption. It felt like the author wasn't just losing the forest for the trees, he was losing the trees for the leaves, then spending a long time telling me about what the local culture believed about those leaves. I would have appreciated even a thin layer of narrative overlay to describe common patterns of consumer development, or at least seperating out the meta-consumer debate from actual consumption patterns. Instead we end up with a narrative that marches rigidly chronologically, giving the reader no broader waypoints into the trends that matter.
Arriving to the second half, I rejoiced that now we could get into synthesis, and that my plodding through a monotonous timeline would be rewarded. Instead, the author expands the scope, as if the entire economic history of humanity were not enough, to talk about related topics of age, time, and other overlapping topic, but each would require at least a book to do justice.
So, we're left an implicit core narrative that consumption, and all the patterns we see about consumption, are neither new nor unique in history. There are numerous adjacent topics to explore, but by trying to cover all of them, the author did none of them justice.
The book starts off far back in history, detailing the gradual transition to where human economic activity reached the level that would make consumerism even possible. I love that the author was able to take European, Asian, and Indian examples, which makes for a more well balanced look at our topic.
However as the book went on, I kept loosing track of where I was in the grand history of consumption. It felt like the author wasn't just losing the forest for the trees, he was losing the trees for the leaves, then spending a long time telling me about what the local culture believed about those leaves. I would have appreciated even a thin layer of narrative overlay to describe common patterns of consumer development, or at least seperating out the meta-consumer debate from actual consumption patterns. Instead we end up with a narrative that marches rigidly chronologically, giving the reader no broader waypoints into the trends that matter.
Arriving to the second half, I rejoiced that now we could get into synthesis, and that my plodding through a monotonous timeline would be rewarded. Instead, the author expands the scope, as if the entire economic history of humanity were not enough, to talk about related topics of age, time, and other overlapping topic, but each would require at least a book to do justice.
So, we're left an implicit core narrative that consumption, and all the patterns we see about consumption, are neither new nor unique in history. There are numerous adjacent topics to explore, but by trying to cover all of them, the author did none of them justice.
January 2, 2018
1st book for 2018.
This is a long book that took me too long to read. After dipping into this book on-an-off basis for several months I can't write a particularly insightful review. I have read a number of "big" history books in the last year, and I many salient facts away from any of them. Perhaps it's a problem of not having a sufficient background in history to allow me to place all the facts I read in a useful conceptual framework; so they just mostly get lost along the way. Perhaps I have ADHD. Perhaps both.
I found in the writing in the book really good, and its breadth admirable - it truly is a global history; however, the text moved around so much that it was difficult to hold on to individual strands of argument. I am not sure how many take home messages I can extract from the book. I guess a central one is that many of our thoughts about consumption (that it's US-led, that it leads to increasing secularization, that its a 20th C phenomenon etc.) are false when viewed through the more nuanced lens of history. Anyone who wants to get a proper view on our consumer culture and it's dangers needs this historical viewpoint to judge contemporary theoretical critiques.
The book is divided into two main parts: The first, the history is interesting, but by its very nature broad, but shallow, and I could have skipped this, and headed straight to (for me) more interesting second part which covers various themes around consumption, from the effects of credit, generational changes in consumption, and environmental issues.
This is a long book that took me too long to read. After dipping into this book on-an-off basis for several months I can't write a particularly insightful review. I have read a number of "big" history books in the last year, and I many salient facts away from any of them. Perhaps it's a problem of not having a sufficient background in history to allow me to place all the facts I read in a useful conceptual framework; so they just mostly get lost along the way. Perhaps I have ADHD. Perhaps both.
I found in the writing in the book really good, and its breadth admirable - it truly is a global history; however, the text moved around so much that it was difficult to hold on to individual strands of argument. I am not sure how many take home messages I can extract from the book. I guess a central one is that many of our thoughts about consumption (that it's US-led, that it leads to increasing secularization, that its a 20th C phenomenon etc.) are false when viewed through the more nuanced lens of history. Anyone who wants to get a proper view on our consumer culture and it's dangers needs this historical viewpoint to judge contemporary theoretical critiques.
The book is divided into two main parts: The first, the history is interesting, but by its very nature broad, but shallow, and I could have skipped this, and headed straight to (for me) more interesting second part which covers various themes around consumption, from the effects of credit, generational changes in consumption, and environmental issues.
March 4, 2017
Unstructured litany of interesting transformations in consumerism. Keeps jumping around geographically and chronologically like a time-travelling jittery bunny with ADHD on speed.
September 10, 2019
A whopping big boi this was! Took me a good 6 weeks of setting daily reading goals as you know was in the midst of moving countries and attending weddings. I had tried to read this book a year ago but lost hope after 50 pages! Alas we have finished him up and would recommend but only if you're in no rush to finish up a book. This book is MASSIVE but very interesting, one can get bogged down in the details as it is largely details. But learned lots of fun and yet always slightly depressing facts. Let's start with a wild one for you! "As late as 1700, all European ships combined brought back from Asia 230,000 tonnes of goods a year, an amount that would into two big container ships today"
However, it's an oversimplification to say that the post WW2 era was the catalyst for the consumer society because sadly, we've had the desire to be consumers for a good few centuries now. The post WW2 era just created a wild boom in consumption to sustain the factories. Interestingly what really changed is state sponsorship of consumerism. For example, in the 15th and 16th century quite a few European countries such as Italy and the Netherlands had anti consumption laws to prevent sumptuous lifestyles. In Venice there laws went so far as to dictate how much cutlery a couple could receive as wedding presents. Goods also tended to be in circulation more than they are now, with semi bartering systems in place in pawn shops. It became clear as I read this that governments need to get more involved and stop leaving it to consumers and companies. (Obviously not to this degree but we would never have reached this level of consumption without government)
This book also showed that there's no one path to consumption as so many countries have followed different models to get to pretty much the same level. Germany and the US followed different models (Americans used more credit whilst Germans saved money and don't use credit but production and waste remains relatively equal.)
This book does a good job of not having a Eurocentric approach and focused on Asian countries and their shift in consumption as well. It also explained the way slave and colonialist goods were brought into Europe and how they were marketed. Lots of fun history about 'staples' of European diets. Coffee had to be remade into a different style of drink in Europe to make it refined enough to be drank, same with tea if I'm not remembering wrong.
Also the spread of these drinks was mostly due the industrial revolution as people needed to be caffeine-ed up. As late as 1724 all of England made do with 660 tons of coffee a year, which if divided equally, is one weak cup every 3 weeks. Tea consumption was barely higher than this.
The last 100 pages focused heavily on our current consumption and how insane it is. The fact that we seem to be shifting from physical gift giving to experience gifts does nothing in terms of our impact on the planet. Our increased standards of living are also something to contend with and seem unsustainable but I'm just hoping we get some AI to fix it bc I do like showering more than once a week. Moreover it seems our recycling is more just a way to make ourselves feel better and really not enough to be tackling climate change. Interestingly though eliminating food waste would do wonders! Appaz "if Britons were to buy only the food they would actually eat, they would cut CO2 emissions by 17 million tonnes - equivalent to taking every 5th car off the roads. " A fun food for thought if you'll excuse the pun!!
Anyways theres way too much in this book to list, but yeah learned a lot (that I need to write down or I will forget in about a week tops) and would recommend if one has the patience for it. We all need to be minimalists (tell that to the Sarah that bought 9 plants this week) the end thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
However, it's an oversimplification to say that the post WW2 era was the catalyst for the consumer society because sadly, we've had the desire to be consumers for a good few centuries now. The post WW2 era just created a wild boom in consumption to sustain the factories. Interestingly what really changed is state sponsorship of consumerism. For example, in the 15th and 16th century quite a few European countries such as Italy and the Netherlands had anti consumption laws to prevent sumptuous lifestyles. In Venice there laws went so far as to dictate how much cutlery a couple could receive as wedding presents. Goods also tended to be in circulation more than they are now, with semi bartering systems in place in pawn shops. It became clear as I read this that governments need to get more involved and stop leaving it to consumers and companies. (Obviously not to this degree but we would never have reached this level of consumption without government)
This book also showed that there's no one path to consumption as so many countries have followed different models to get to pretty much the same level. Germany and the US followed different models (Americans used more credit whilst Germans saved money and don't use credit but production and waste remains relatively equal.)
This book does a good job of not having a Eurocentric approach and focused on Asian countries and their shift in consumption as well. It also explained the way slave and colonialist goods were brought into Europe and how they were marketed. Lots of fun history about 'staples' of European diets. Coffee had to be remade into a different style of drink in Europe to make it refined enough to be drank, same with tea if I'm not remembering wrong.
Also the spread of these drinks was mostly due the industrial revolution as people needed to be caffeine-ed up. As late as 1724 all of England made do with 660 tons of coffee a year, which if divided equally, is one weak cup every 3 weeks. Tea consumption was barely higher than this.
The last 100 pages focused heavily on our current consumption and how insane it is. The fact that we seem to be shifting from physical gift giving to experience gifts does nothing in terms of our impact on the planet. Our increased standards of living are also something to contend with and seem unsustainable but I'm just hoping we get some AI to fix it bc I do like showering more than once a week. Moreover it seems our recycling is more just a way to make ourselves feel better and really not enough to be tackling climate change. Interestingly though eliminating food waste would do wonders! Appaz "if Britons were to buy only the food they would actually eat, they would cut CO2 emissions by 17 million tonnes - equivalent to taking every 5th car off the roads. " A fun food for thought if you'll excuse the pun!!
Anyways theres way too much in this book to list, but yeah learned a lot (that I need to write down or I will forget in about a week tops) and would recommend if one has the patience for it. We all need to be minimalists (tell that to the Sarah that bought 9 plants this week) the end thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
October 31, 2017
How the hell have more people not read this? What the hell is wrong with people. . ..
Right, so what this is, is Part 1: The History of Consumerism Part 2: A discussion on consumerism, mostly as it is today. And, Part 3: A couple pages at the end of "We can reduce our consumption!"
Part 1: Easily the best version of this I have ever read. For why? It approaches it from the blazingly obvious and yet ubiquitously ignored direction. 1: Humans have a kind of similarity over time. What drives us doesn't change so much as the expression of those drives. 2: The "Stages of History" are bullshit, fairytales that simplify and cover for missing data; real history is evolution, and one can generally expect pieces of 'the next stage' to be in place long, long before it has clearly been reached. I.e. houses did not get water, electricity, and gas all at once. Or even reliably. 3: Tries to branch out from "The West", ehh, it kinda does. Post-War Japan gets the best of this, and that's largely a reflection on source availability, as it usually is when it comes to talking about "the rest" as a Western writer.
Part 2: Using same points from Part 1, discusses the effects of, rather than the evolution of, consumerism-- superlatively interesting. I'd quite like to discuss several points with the author.
Part 3: I mean. . . .I get it. . .but it's basically throwing out all the lessons of nuance this very book is based on. Basically, after 33 hours of this incredibly detailed, informative, and balanced exploration of consumerism, it defaults to "We don't need this much stuff, and we don't benefit from it, and the world will end if we don't get rid of it." And there's a place for that argument, and I suppose this book really is that place -- but I can't help but think technology suddenly has gotten the short end of the stick in this book just by including this ending remarks. For why? Well, the people are fully explored, and so too the State -- but I cannot help but feel that, in the world as it is today, with the economic systems that exist today, any attempt to curb consumption, rather than the effects of consumption, is effectively asking to return to the last stage of humanity capable of supporting us without yearly growth of the GDP. . .that is, consumption. The problem is that once you account for there now being 7 billion people, and everything that comes with that, shifting backwards requires going back to Malthusian economics, and it requires the death of most of the world -- almost everyone in the most populous centres.
The author focuses on psychology, and need. He ends up with an argument based solely on need tho. And technology gets completely shafted by this book once that closing argument is introduced.
So -- I don't find that argument at all useful -- but that's 5 minutes out of 34 hours of the book. I mean. . .It's barely relevant. Mostly it just points out "Oh yeah, this book kinda doesn't talk about tech at all."
EDIT:
Eh, that said: It's quite possible we simply won't survive if we don't do -something-, and praying for tech is probably a dumb idea. Yes, let's curb consumerism, hell let's demolish the psychotic ideology outright, but we must recognize what we're really doing -- taking down the most powerful ideology, and military force, in all of history. It may not even be possible. I point you to The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression and Saving Capitalism; For the Many, not the Few for further reading and discussion of part III of this book. But I'm definitely backpedaling my original dismissiveness.
Right, so what this is, is Part 1: The History of Consumerism Part 2: A discussion on consumerism, mostly as it is today. And, Part 3: A couple pages at the end of "We can reduce our consumption!"
Part 1: Easily the best version of this I have ever read. For why? It approaches it from the blazingly obvious and yet ubiquitously ignored direction. 1: Humans have a kind of similarity over time. What drives us doesn't change so much as the expression of those drives. 2: The "Stages of History" are bullshit, fairytales that simplify and cover for missing data; real history is evolution, and one can generally expect pieces of 'the next stage' to be in place long, long before it has clearly been reached. I.e. houses did not get water, electricity, and gas all at once. Or even reliably. 3: Tries to branch out from "The West", ehh, it kinda does. Post-War Japan gets the best of this, and that's largely a reflection on source availability, as it usually is when it comes to talking about "the rest" as a Western writer.
Part 2: Using same points from Part 1, discusses the effects of, rather than the evolution of, consumerism-- superlatively interesting. I'd quite like to discuss several points with the author.
Part 3: I mean. . . .I get it. . .but it's basically throwing out all the lessons of nuance this very book is based on. Basically, after 33 hours of this incredibly detailed, informative, and balanced exploration of consumerism, it defaults to "We don't need this much stuff, and we don't benefit from it, and the world will end if we don't get rid of it." And there's a place for that argument, and I suppose this book really is that place -- but I can't help but think technology suddenly has gotten the short end of the stick in this book just by including this ending remarks. For why? Well, the people are fully explored, and so too the State -- but I cannot help but feel that, in the world as it is today, with the economic systems that exist today, any attempt to curb consumption, rather than the effects of consumption, is effectively asking to return to the last stage of humanity capable of supporting us without yearly growth of the GDP. . .that is, consumption. The problem is that once you account for there now being 7 billion people, and everything that comes with that, shifting backwards requires going back to Malthusian economics, and it requires the death of most of the world -- almost everyone in the most populous centres.
The author focuses on psychology, and need. He ends up with an argument based solely on need tho. And technology gets completely shafted by this book once that closing argument is introduced.
So -- I don't find that argument at all useful -- but that's 5 minutes out of 34 hours of the book. I mean. . .It's barely relevant. Mostly it just points out "Oh yeah, this book kinda doesn't talk about tech at all."
EDIT:
Eh, that said: It's quite possible we simply won't survive if we don't do -something-, and praying for tech is probably a dumb idea. Yes, let's curb consumerism, hell let's demolish the psychotic ideology outright, but we must recognize what we're really doing -- taking down the most powerful ideology, and military force, in all of history. It may not even be possible. I point you to The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression and Saving Capitalism; For the Many, not the Few for further reading and discussion of part III of this book. But I'm definitely backpedaling my original dismissiveness.
February 17, 2016
First, I didn't actually read the Kindle edition. Anyway, there is a lot of interesting material here but for the love of Pete, as someone who knows a good bit about the topic I can only say this could have been said in half the space. Maybe I knew a bit too much about the topic to appreciate the many, many, many examples used, but I just felt this dragged out far too long.
December 31, 2020
Consumption has come a long way from a word that served as archaic definition of tuberculosis to an essential part of our lives. Throughout history, it has shifted between vice and virtue, become an engine for significant shift of history, like how colonialism and imperialism were partly fueled by increasing demand of many things, and even become main selling point of various ideologies. This book left nothing uncovered, which makes me feel overwhelmed more than once. So many information contained within a chapter that I often have to remind myself about what I am currently reading, especially when continuing reading after quite a while. I’m not saying that this book is badly written, I’d rather blame my lack of focus while reading this book, which made a slogging and tedious experience for me. However, if you are interested in how human behavior and economics intertwined, this book is for you.
October 9, 2023
This book is overall very good. Sometimes, it takes an impressive middle ground argument, but the authors passion for objects was infectious. Although, like any history of this scale, there are some issues with how much it focuses on each type of material good and geographical area. However, there were multiple points in which I felt like the author could have easily taken the easy way out, focusing mostly on European history with token handwaves towards the rest of the world, and he didn't. Personally, I feel like I would have loved to see the material costs of consumption weaved into the other chapters rather than lumped together at the end. I could tell from at least the halfway point that was where the book was going, and there were times in which it felt very successful and others where it was detrimental to the argument being made.
I'm glad that I've read this book in concert with other texts, it definitely increased my appreciation for all of the topics.
I'm glad that I've read this book in concert with other texts, it definitely increased my appreciation for all of the topics.
September 25, 2025
This book genuinely changed the way I think about consumption. Since reading it, I’ve started buying more intentionally—choosing things I’ll actually keep, cutting back on Starbucks, skipping aimless Target strolls, and even clicking on fewer ads on my phone. That shift alone makes this book stick with me.
One of the scarier parts of the book is realizing how much of our world is built on throwaway mentalaties. The idea that so much of what we buy is designed not to last—and how normal that’s become—really hit me. It made me want to resist that cycle in my own small ways.
The middle did drag for me—it got pretty dry, though that may have been where I was in life (summer, when I was craving something lighter). Still, the overall impact on my daily habits is undeniable.
If you’re curious about how history, culture, and consumerism intertwine —and don’t mind a slower read—it’s worth picking up.
One of the scarier parts of the book is realizing how much of our world is built on throwaway mentalaties. The idea that so much of what we buy is designed not to last—and how normal that’s become—really hit me. It made me want to resist that cycle in my own small ways.
The middle did drag for me—it got pretty dry, though that may have been where I was in life (summer, when I was craving something lighter). Still, the overall impact on my daily habits is undeniable.
If you’re curious about how history, culture, and consumerism intertwine —and don’t mind a slower read—it’s worth picking up.
March 4, 2018
Phew! It took me quite a while to read this book! A rather large but enjoyable book that defines the rise of modern society and it's very core on which it developed itself - consumerism. I kinda looked at myself and thought "my gosh, this is absolutely who were are now!" and continued to compare how everything is just destined to become as it is now. It is natural for us to gorge in luxury, in things we don't need and there is a good reason to it - we're suckers for pretty, eye appealing products and the advertisement machine tuned itself to perfection in selling it. Everything works just for the sole purpose of spending our money. We work to satisfy our hunger for the material, we live in a world in which we think we deserve it.
January 25, 2020
Wouldn't have guessed it from the title but this was refreshingly nuanced and without a trace of the moralising tone and scaremongering most consumerism discourse seems to be keen on. It also doesn't happen very often that a book with such a global outlook actually manages to correctly interpret the history of such an often-forgotten part of the world as Eastern Europe. I wish the chapters had a bit more structure and offered brief conclusions, as particularly the earlier history felt rather anecdote-heavy and I found it difficult to pay attention - this might have to do with the fact that this is not the most suitable format for an audiobook (although the narrator's performance was stellar - full marks and not only because his German pronunciation was really good).
November 18, 2019
Oh yes. I love books. I love big books - more. Written in the Braudelian mode, the Empire of Things is big in size, but ambitious in goal. It explores the history of consumerism in the last 500 years.
Americanization. Veblen and conspicuous consumption. Globalization. Shopping Centres. Everything that we would expect to be here is present in this book. But the detail, the rigour and the sweeping international context makes this book both a delight to read and disturbing - in equal measure.
The meaning in the exhange of money for goods that we do not need is clear, stark, and sad.
Americanization. Veblen and conspicuous consumption. Globalization. Shopping Centres. Everything that we would expect to be here is present in this book. But the detail, the rigour and the sweeping international context makes this book both a delight to read and disturbing - in equal measure.
The meaning in the exhange of money for goods that we do not need is clear, stark, and sad.
March 26, 2019
For many reasons I often go on a minimalism kick...what is the least that I need to live, what is the least to make me happy...what is the most important. I remember an Old West Wing episode where a character was riffing on how Free Trade stops wars. And this book sort of ties together the threads of how we got so invested in 'Stuff' but more importantly how they shape our environment. We live our lives and our lives are shaped by stuff. If you want to test that try going a half day without your smartphone. Stuff dictates for us how our culture is shaped, how we interact with our culture...what is seen as beautiful, what we see an elegant or dirty. This book is thorough. It goes through different cultures and gives us a real measure of how all of our things....unites and divides us...
June 29, 2016
Review Title: Consumption assumptions
Trentmann has written a unique history of consumption across time and geography, starting at the beginning with the definition of the word and how it has changed over the centuries. It is an ambitious effort, at times hampered by the breadth and the nature of the topic, but ultimately a valuable asset worth reading.
What does it mean to consume, to buy and own material possessions? Trentmann traces the transition of the meaning from " use up" to "use". He also traces the broadening scope of possessions from the eternal essentials of food, clothing, and housing to include both new personal things (coffee, tea, and silk from the new trade routes of Empire, for example, and newly invented things like electrical appliances and nostalgic keepsakes) and new public goods like clean and always available water, electric supply, and communication networks. He shows how the interaction between the many types of things we can choose to buy, use, retain, and even discard, is complex and dependent on many geographic, economic, cultural, and personal variables. Consumption has been a heavily studied topic and Trentmann's sources for over 100 pages of footnotes include
The Greek philosophers with their competing notions of the spartan and the epicurean lifestyles
The founding of Christianity with its suspicion of last for worldly wealth
The modern roots of government with Rousseau's natural man and the American right to property and economic free market freedom.
Many literary and cultural criticisms and defenses of over consumption, frivolous buying, restrictions on consumption, inequalities and positive and negative consequences of how we spend and what we buy.
And finally, the growing number of attempts to study with statistical and objective research exactly what, who, how much, and why we buy.
What Trentmann does that is unique is to study and synchronize this body of sources and ideas across five centuries of change in consumption and across the geographies of Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia. He challenges assumptions with data, questions cultural biases, and attempts to correct flawed perceptions. The effort isn't easy as the data is often nonexistent or inconsistent, but Trentmann points out the gaps in the data and the caveats in his theory so we can trust that in attempting to establish this new historical area of study he is not creating his own new assumptions and biases.
The book is arranged in two parts, starting first with a broadly chronological history, arranged around the main driving forces of consumption by time period. The inclusion of Empire in his title is not coincidental,as a large part of the first part is shaped by the flow of goods on the routes of Empire during both the Spanish and British periods of world dominance. Tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and cocoa were huge components of both the cause and effect of these Empires and of the history of what and how things were consumed in those centuries. What Trentmann does that is unique here is study the effects of Empire on consumption on both sides of the trade routes. For example how did sugar produced by African slaves in the Caribbean effect consumption not o lyrics in England, but in Africa and the Caribbean as well.
He also questions assumptions about supposedly geographic or ethnic differences in how we buy and use things by looking at Asian cultures in China, Japan, and Korea, as well as breaking down lumpy Western data by country to look at the perceptions of "the wasteful American," "the frugal German," "the spartan Chinese, " and "the saving Japanese." Not all stereotypes are as valid as we think.
The second half of the book takes a topical view of the key current debates about consumption, using the historical study of the first part to better ground the topics in historical and geographic reality. Here Trentmann looks at the "the frivolous youth", but spends equal time looking at consumption at the other end of the age spectrum where senior citizens have become an increasingly potent force in consumption spending. He also takes on the assumptions of the debt-ridden consumer economy, the influence of public spending on private consumption, the negative effect of the cult of material consumption on modern spiritual life, and the throwaway society. With the "reuse, repair, recycle" mantra, how are we doing at reducing our material impact on the environment, economy, and ethics of the globe. As with the historical stereotypes, Trentmann shows that not all the debate sound bites are as certain as the chattering class wants us to believe.
So Trentmann has opened up a valuable entry into what is really a new area of study for historians and data analytics. The need to solidify and synthesize the data are clear from his frequent observations about how inconsistent the current data collection analysis really is. With the broad scope (nearly 700 pages of text here) and uncertain footing he often qualifies his findings and theories, and each qualification represents an opportunity for an enterprising analytical historian to drill down and clarify and modify the theory.
Trentmann has written a unique history of consumption across time and geography, starting at the beginning with the definition of the word and how it has changed over the centuries. It is an ambitious effort, at times hampered by the breadth and the nature of the topic, but ultimately a valuable asset worth reading.
What does it mean to consume, to buy and own material possessions? Trentmann traces the transition of the meaning from " use up" to "use". He also traces the broadening scope of possessions from the eternal essentials of food, clothing, and housing to include both new personal things (coffee, tea, and silk from the new trade routes of Empire, for example, and newly invented things like electrical appliances and nostalgic keepsakes) and new public goods like clean and always available water, electric supply, and communication networks. He shows how the interaction between the many types of things we can choose to buy, use, retain, and even discard, is complex and dependent on many geographic, economic, cultural, and personal variables. Consumption has been a heavily studied topic and Trentmann's sources for over 100 pages of footnotes include
The Greek philosophers with their competing notions of the spartan and the epicurean lifestyles
The founding of Christianity with its suspicion of last for worldly wealth
The modern roots of government with Rousseau's natural man and the American right to property and economic free market freedom.
Many literary and cultural criticisms and defenses of over consumption, frivolous buying, restrictions on consumption, inequalities and positive and negative consequences of how we spend and what we buy.
And finally, the growing number of attempts to study with statistical and objective research exactly what, who, how much, and why we buy.
What Trentmann does that is unique is to study and synchronize this body of sources and ideas across five centuries of change in consumption and across the geographies of Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia. He challenges assumptions with data, questions cultural biases, and attempts to correct flawed perceptions. The effort isn't easy as the data is often nonexistent or inconsistent, but Trentmann points out the gaps in the data and the caveats in his theory so we can trust that in attempting to establish this new historical area of study he is not creating his own new assumptions and biases.
The book is arranged in two parts, starting first with a broadly chronological history, arranged around the main driving forces of consumption by time period. The inclusion of Empire in his title is not coincidental,as a large part of the first part is shaped by the flow of goods on the routes of Empire during both the Spanish and British periods of world dominance. Tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and cocoa were huge components of both the cause and effect of these Empires and of the history of what and how things were consumed in those centuries. What Trentmann does that is unique here is study the effects of Empire on consumption on both sides of the trade routes. For example how did sugar produced by African slaves in the Caribbean effect consumption not o lyrics in England, but in Africa and the Caribbean as well.
He also questions assumptions about supposedly geographic or ethnic differences in how we buy and use things by looking at Asian cultures in China, Japan, and Korea, as well as breaking down lumpy Western data by country to look at the perceptions of "the wasteful American," "the frugal German," "the spartan Chinese, " and "the saving Japanese." Not all stereotypes are as valid as we think.
The second half of the book takes a topical view of the key current debates about consumption, using the historical study of the first part to better ground the topics in historical and geographic reality. Here Trentmann looks at the "the frivolous youth", but spends equal time looking at consumption at the other end of the age spectrum where senior citizens have become an increasingly potent force in consumption spending. He also takes on the assumptions of the debt-ridden consumer economy, the influence of public spending on private consumption, the negative effect of the cult of material consumption on modern spiritual life, and the throwaway society. With the "reuse, repair, recycle" mantra, how are we doing at reducing our material impact on the environment, economy, and ethics of the globe. As with the historical stereotypes, Trentmann shows that not all the debate sound bites are as certain as the chattering class wants us to believe.
So Trentmann has opened up a valuable entry into what is really a new area of study for historians and data analytics. The need to solidify and synthesize the data are clear from his frequent observations about how inconsistent the current data collection analysis really is. With the broad scope (nearly 700 pages of text here) and uncertain footing he often qualifies his findings and theories, and each qualification represents an opportunity for an enterprising analytical historian to drill down and clarify and modify the theory.
January 18, 2025
Its way too long a read (listen in my case). But the individual stories told over the long time period covered are fascinating.
December 27, 2022
Illuminating and thoroughly enjoyable. A wide ranging history of consumerism - temporally, geographically and thematically. A balanced history which demonstrates that much apparent change is a matter of scale rather than fundamental shifts. Human beings have always been materialistic and placed value on goods, and always been disposers of waste.
April 25, 2024
Impressive in scope. Includes some highly thought provoking charts.
March 9, 2017
3.5 stars
This wide ranging history of consumption provides lots of detail, so much so that the author's thesis (how we consume is culturally mediated) often gets lost in the shuffle. The author goes from late-Renaissance Italy to present-day America, Europe, and select Asian countries. Overall, I found it to be full of interesting detail, but the author's insistence on viewing consumption from a variety of perspectives belied the fact that as people get richer, they consume (and waste) more. No matter how you slice it, that fact cropped up again and again (but wasn't necessarily highlighted by the author). What I did appreciate is that the author was quick to point out that a society that consumed more "experiences" was no less consumerist than a society that consumed more physical goods.
While only briefly noted (and not emphasized) by the author, we also see that when there is a push to regulate consumption (e.g. sumptuary laws), it tends to come at the price of restricting the enjoyment of the lower classes.
While the author rightly casts aspersions on Veblen's concept of "conspicuous consumption" as a monolithic explanation of consuming behavior (people do get direct utility from consumption as well as indirect utility from increases in status that that consumption entails), I think he does not give it enough weight when explaining the trickle down nature of consuming behavior, for example, the transformation of leisure being inactive to active (consider the rise in fitness industry) or cooking becoming a less utilitarian acitivity. This is why I think the author fails to give (amid the mass of detail) a convincing theoretical account of the evolution of consumption. Yes, consumption (and the meaning we place on it and the forms it takes) is culturally mediated. But why does it take the form of public building projects in Medici Florence and gigantic weddings in India and sky-diving or Crossfit in the US. My guess would be that the changing family structure due to the increases in wealth leads to more freedom to consume how one wants rather than being constrained by family ties that require broader displays of largess. The Medici didn't build grand plazas and commission the David because public works are virtuous (as the author claims); they were constrained by the lack of wealth of the broader society and didn't have anything else to spend it on (there truly are only so many silk robes you can have).
Minor quibble 1: when discussing changes in broad consumer behavior, the author talks of "societies choosing" a particular pattern of behavior. That kind of sloppy writing/thinking neglects the evolutionary nature of individual preferences.
Minor quibble 2: when discussing the changes in consumption patterns and other broad economic shifts, the author is a bit all over the place with explanations. He'll give all the major theories and (generally) not parse the plausibility of each (or give a rough estimate of what the explanatory power of each theory). For example, when discussing the Industrial Revolution, I think he gave at least 3 major explanations of why it happened in Britain even though some of those explanations are (if not mutually exclusive) in tension with each other.
This wide ranging history of consumption provides lots of detail, so much so that the author's thesis (how we consume is culturally mediated) often gets lost in the shuffle. The author goes from late-Renaissance Italy to present-day America, Europe, and select Asian countries. Overall, I found it to be full of interesting detail, but the author's insistence on viewing consumption from a variety of perspectives belied the fact that as people get richer, they consume (and waste) more. No matter how you slice it, that fact cropped up again and again (but wasn't necessarily highlighted by the author). What I did appreciate is that the author was quick to point out that a society that consumed more "experiences" was no less consumerist than a society that consumed more physical goods.
While only briefly noted (and not emphasized) by the author, we also see that when there is a push to regulate consumption (e.g. sumptuary laws), it tends to come at the price of restricting the enjoyment of the lower classes.
While the author rightly casts aspersions on Veblen's concept of "conspicuous consumption" as a monolithic explanation of consuming behavior (people do get direct utility from consumption as well as indirect utility from increases in status that that consumption entails), I think he does not give it enough weight when explaining the trickle down nature of consuming behavior, for example, the transformation of leisure being inactive to active (consider the rise in fitness industry) or cooking becoming a less utilitarian acitivity. This is why I think the author fails to give (amid the mass of detail) a convincing theoretical account of the evolution of consumption. Yes, consumption (and the meaning we place on it and the forms it takes) is culturally mediated. But why does it take the form of public building projects in Medici Florence and gigantic weddings in India and sky-diving or Crossfit in the US. My guess would be that the changing family structure due to the increases in wealth leads to more freedom to consume how one wants rather than being constrained by family ties that require broader displays of largess. The Medici didn't build grand plazas and commission the David because public works are virtuous (as the author claims); they were constrained by the lack of wealth of the broader society and didn't have anything else to spend it on (there truly are only so many silk robes you can have).
Minor quibble 1: when discussing changes in broad consumer behavior, the author talks of "societies choosing" a particular pattern of behavior. That kind of sloppy writing/thinking neglects the evolutionary nature of individual preferences.
Minor quibble 2: when discussing the changes in consumption patterns and other broad economic shifts, the author is a bit all over the place with explanations. He'll give all the major theories and (generally) not parse the plausibility of each (or give a rough estimate of what the explanatory power of each theory). For example, when discussing the Industrial Revolution, I think he gave at least 3 major explanations of why it happened in Britain even though some of those explanations are (if not mutually exclusive) in tension with each other.
June 15, 2020
This book simply tries to do too much. A history of every non-essential thing in every country across five hundred years. In the introduction Trentmann writes "My intention has been to follow major themes across time and space, not to try to be encyclopaedic." But the resulting book very much comes across as "encyclopaedic". How can it not when it has frequent passages such as this one from 1609 listing the Chinese goods for sale to the Spanish in Manila.
And that's hardly an isolated occurrence. I just felt...weary...reading this. I struggled to see the forest for the trees, constantly buried in an avalanche of factoids, such as
I struggled to discern what the "major themes across time and space" were...other than the obvious "once people started having more than subsistence incomes they were able to start affording other things, what those things were was a complicated contingency of history and geography".
This isn't to say the book is terrible or has nothing interesting to say. Simply that the chaff outweighed the wheat for me. For every section on how "cotton [...] was the first truly global mass consumer good" there we be sections that retread the Great Divergence (between Europe and Asia/rest of the world) debate without adding much.
To some extent that is unavoidable -- how could such an all-encompassing topic like "the things we spend money on" not end-up touching on colonialism, post-colonialism, industrialization, religion, feminism, child labor, and so much more. So even as I disliked Trentmann's totalizing approach, I also struggled to see how he could have meaningfully reduced it without gutting the story and turning into another overly-simplistic "how coffee changed the world" type book.
At the end I felt like Trentmann's main message was, "Wow, everything is just vastly more complicated and interrelated than you can imagine and even 800+ pages I can only scrape the surface". But...at that point I begin to think the book has set itself an impossible task: this kind of book is doomed to failure, I think. The topic is just too broad.
white cotton cloth of different kinds and qualities, for all uses . . . many bed ornaments, hangings, coverlets, and tapestries of embroidered velvet; . . . tablecloths, cushions, and carpets . . . copper kettles . . . little boxes and writing-cases; beds, tables, chairs, and gilded benches, painted in many figures and patterns; . . . numberless other gewgaws and ornaments of little value and worth, which are esteemed among the Spaniards; besides a quantity of fine crockery of all kinds; . . . beads of all kinds . . . and rarities – which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it
And that's hardly an isolated occurrence. I just felt...weary...reading this. I struggled to see the forest for the trees, constantly buried in an avalanche of factoids, such as
In the early seventeenth century, for example, men and women in Bondorf and Gebersheim, two villages in Württemberg, Germany, owned 3 and 12 articles of clothing respectively. A century later, the number had shot up to 16 and 27 pieces. By 1800, it had doubled again.
I struggled to discern what the "major themes across time and space" were...other than the obvious "once people started having more than subsistence incomes they were able to start affording other things, what those things were was a complicated contingency of history and geography".
This isn't to say the book is terrible or has nothing interesting to say. Simply that the chaff outweighed the wheat for me. For every section on how "cotton [...] was the first truly global mass consumer good" there we be sections that retread the Great Divergence (between Europe and Asia/rest of the world) debate without adding much.
To some extent that is unavoidable -- how could such an all-encompassing topic like "the things we spend money on" not end-up touching on colonialism, post-colonialism, industrialization, religion, feminism, child labor, and so much more. So even as I disliked Trentmann's totalizing approach, I also struggled to see how he could have meaningfully reduced it without gutting the story and turning into another overly-simplistic "how coffee changed the world" type book.
At the end I felt like Trentmann's main message was, "Wow, everything is just vastly more complicated and interrelated than you can imagine and even 800+ pages I can only scrape the surface". But...at that point I begin to think the book has set itself an impossible task: this kind of book is doomed to failure, I think. The topic is just too broad.
October 17, 2018
I really don't think this book was worth my time.
It consists of two parts, and having read the first one I put it away for several months. I decided to finish it just a couple of weeks ago, simply because I had already dedicated so much time to it and felt guilty about quitting.
Although packed with facts (most of which is just trivia), the book fails to provide a well-argued analysis of consumerism across centuries. Rather, from time to time, in between tons of anecdotes, a two-three page selective analysis is inserted. I am aware that to write a history of things is an overwhelming task, but the format chosen for this book is simply counterproductive. Despite huge commitment required to read The Empire of Things (my edition is 800+ pages of fine print), all I am left with is a bunch of inconsequential trivia I should remember to insert into some conversations quickly, before they evaporate from my head.
It consists of two parts, and having read the first one I put it away for several months. I decided to finish it just a couple of weeks ago, simply because I had already dedicated so much time to it and felt guilty about quitting.
Although packed with facts (most of which is just trivia), the book fails to provide a well-argued analysis of consumerism across centuries. Rather, from time to time, in between tons of anecdotes, a two-three page selective analysis is inserted. I am aware that to write a history of things is an overwhelming task, but the format chosen for this book is simply counterproductive. Despite huge commitment required to read The Empire of Things (my edition is 800+ pages of fine print), all I am left with is a bunch of inconsequential trivia I should remember to insert into some conversations quickly, before they evaporate from my head.
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