The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-century England

by Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, J. Plumb

Overview

This enormously influential book by three leading historians was a revolution in the understanding of commercialisation and the economy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and the consumer revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912224272
Publisher:	Edward Everett Root
Publication date:	10/19/2018
Edition description:	2nd Expanded ed.
Pages:	1
Product dimensions:	6.47(w) x 9.55(h) x 1.08(d)

About the Author

Neil McKendrick is one of the best-known historians in 18^th-century studies. He was the Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He has published widely in 18th-century studies, notably on Josiah Wedgwood.

John Brewer is the Eli and Eyde Broad Professor of Humanities and Social Science at the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of The Sinews of Power, War Money and the English State (1989), and Pleasures of the Imagination. English Culture in the 18^th Century (1996; re-issued 2013) which won the Wolfson History Prize.

Sir John (Jack) Harold Plumb, FBA was known for his books on British 18lh century history. In 1962 he was appointed Reader in Modern History at Cambridge and then became Professor of Modern English History in 1966. He was Master of Christ's College from 1978-82.

Table of Contents

Notes on the Authors vi

Preface Neil McKendrick vii

Introduction to 2018 edition Neil McKendrick ix

Introduction. The Birth of a Consumer Society: the Commercialization of Eighteenth-century England Neil McKendrick 1

Part I Commercialization and the Economy Neil McKendrick

1 The Consumer Revolution of Eighteenth-Century England 9

2 The Commercialization of Fashion 34

3 Josiah Wedgwood and the Commercialization of the Potteries 100

4 George Packwood and the Commercialization of Shaving: The Art of Eighteenth-Century Advertising or "The Way to Get Money and be Happy" 146

Part II Commercialization and Politics John Brewer

5 Commercialization and Politics 197

Part III Commercialization and Society J. H. Plumb

6 The Commercialization of Leisure 265

7 The New World of Children 286

8 The Acceptance of Modernity 316

Part IV Commercialization of Leisure Neil McKendrick

9 Botany, Gardening and the Birth of a Consumer Society 337

Index 379

Editorial Reviews

“As Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J.H.Plumb make clear in this important and engrossing book, contemporary observers were witnesses to the birth of what they call a consumer revolution. And it was to have a profound effect on English society and politics as well as on its economy. One of the main purposes of The Birth of a Consumer Society is to map out the territory and to determine the nature and scope of this new consumer market. It is not an easy task, and the authors’ sorties into the field are exploratory, suggestive and invariably carried out with great skill and sophistication. Neil McKendrick’s and Sir John Plumb’s work in this field is classic scholarship, well known to historians, but it is still good to have it collected and developed here. ” - Nicholas Phillipson, Sunday Telegraph.​

From the Publisher