Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century (Perspectives on the American Revolution)

Book by Carson, Cary, Hoffman, Ronald

History

Hoffman, Ronald

Carson, Cary

Americas

Univ of Virginia Pr

Face Value: The Consumer Revolution and the Colonizing of America

The Industrial Revolution was previously understood as having awakened an enormous, unquenchable thirst for material consumption. People up and down the social order had discovered and were indulging in the most extraordinary passion for consumer merchandise in quantities and varieties that had been unimaginable to their parents and grandparents. It was indeed a revolution, but a consumer revolution at the start. In Face Value, Cary Carson expands and updates his groundbreaking earlier work to address the intriguing question of how Americans became the world’s consummate consumers. Prior to the rise of gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America, there was still a decided sameness to people’s material lives. About mid-century, though, a lust for fancy goods, coupled with social aspiration, began to transform American society. Carson here addresses the intriguing question of how Americans developed the reputation for avid consumption. Both elegantly written and engagingly argued, the book reveals how the rise of the gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America gave rise to a consumer economy.

Business & Money

Economics

The Industrial Revolution was previously understood as having awakened an enormous, unquenchable thirst for material consumption. People up and down the social order had discovered and were indulging in the most extraordinary passion for consumer merchandise in quantities and varieties that had been unimaginable to their parents and grandparents. It was indeed a revolution, but a consumer revolution at the start. In Face Value, Cary Carson expands and updates his groundbreaking earlier work to address the intriguing question of how Americans became the world’s consummate consumers. Prior to the rise of gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America, there was still a decided sameness to people’s material lives. About mid-century, though, a lust for fancy goods, coupled with social aspiration, began to transform American society. Carson here addresses the intriguing question of how Americans developed the reputation for avid consumption. Both elegantly written and engagingly argued, the book reveals how the rise of the gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America gave rise to a consumer economy.

University of Virginia Press

Local History, National Heritage: Reflections on the History of AASLH

Alexander, Edward P.

Rath, Frederick L.

Hosmer, Charles B., Jr.

Swinney, Holman J.

Alderson, William T.

Altamira Pr

This major innovative study is centred on a type of document that has hitherto been almost unknown to scholars. It explores the significance of a unique source, the 'house-and-estate' survey - which adds detail of the village's houses, outhouses, and farm buildings to the standard evidence of an estate survey. These surveys are explored for South-West England for the period from the end of the 16th to the mid-18th centuries. The first part of the book examines the twenty West Country communities for which such surveys survive, using these documents to paint landscapes of individual farming communities caught at one moment in time - pictures that come as close as written records can to the complete archaeological excavation of village sites. It examines (a) The communities and their social structure, including land-holdings and demographic evidence. (b) The houses, covering construction and plan (including evidence from standing buildings); rooms and their use, and the pattern of housing revealed in the surveys. (c) The farmsteads, covering the buildings of the farmsteads (examining both standing buildings and documentary sources), the relationship of the farms to the regional economies, and the discovery of economic opportunities and contrasts between neighbours (an innovative study based on comparisons drawn from the survey evidence). The second part of the book considers each of the villages and their farms in detail. Each chapter introduces the place and its individual features, discusses the character of the houses, of the farmsteads and the farming economy as revealed in the surveys. This is followed by an abstract of the detailed information in the corresponding survey. The book includes an index including the many hundred West-country individuals named in the surveys, that will be of value to anyone working on the region.Table of ContentsPart I: West Country Communities Introduction South-western England in the Seventeenth Century The Estates The Surveys Communities and their Social Structure The Size of Landholdings Social Structure Demographic Evidence The Houses House Construction and Plan The Rooms of the House The Evidence of the Surveys The Farmsteads The Buildings of the Farmsteads Farmsteads and the Regional Economies Economic Opportunities Among Neighbours Part II: The Villages and the Farms Introduction Kenton (1598) Survey of Kenton Cornish Manors (1602-1606) Survey of Cornish Manors Sherford (1606) Survey of Sherford Farway and Whitwell (1609) Survey of Farway and Whitwell Seaton (1609 and 1682) Surveys and leases of Seaton Nettlecombe (1619) Survey of Nettlecombe Somerset Crown Estates (1606-1608) Bedford Estates (1704) Survey of Bedford Estates Sidmouth (1764) Survey of Sidmouth Subject Index Index of Persons Index of Places

West Country Farms: House-and-Estate Surveys, 1598-1764

Alcock, Nat

Europe

Oxbow Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carson, Cary. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carson, Cary