A History of Global Consumption: 1500-1800 - Paperback

by Ina Baghdiantz McCabe (Author)

In A History of Global Consumption: 1500 - 1800, Ina Baghdiantz McCabe examines the history of consumption throughout the early modern period using a combination of chronological and thematic discussion, taking a comprehensive and wide-reaching view of a subject that has long been on the historical agenda. The title explores the topic from the rise of the collector in Renaissance Europe to the birth of consumption as a political tool in the eighteenth century.

Beginning with an overview of the history of consumption and the major theorists, such as Bourdieu, Elias and Barthes, who have shaped its development as a field, Baghdiantz McCabe approaches the subject through a clear chronological framework. Supplemented by illlustrations in every chapter and ranging in scope from an analysis of the success of American commodities such as tobacco, sugar and chocolate in Europe and Asia to a discussion of the Dutch tulip mania, A History of Global Consumption: 1500 - 1800 is the perfect guide for all students interested in the social, cultural and economic history of the early modern period.

Author Biography

Professor of History and the Darakjian and Jafarian Chair of Armenian History at Tufts University, USA. Her publications include The Shah's Silk for Europe's Silver: The Eurasian Silk trade of the Julfan Armenians in Safavid Iran and India, 1590-1750 (1999), Diaspora and Entrepreneurial Networks 1600-2000, co-editor (2005) and Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism and the Ancien Régime (2008).