Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First

a monumental work that deserves a wide audience. It is both a highly engaging global history of consumer culture and a masterful synthesis of a vast body of literature … There are few truly global histories of consumer culture, and no study is as meticulous or comprehensive. … In sum, Frank Trentmann's Empire of Things is a masterpiece of historical analysis that offers a wealth of insights into material desire, changing social norms, state policies, transnational connectivity, and other themes in the history of consumption. Indeed, Empire of Things is a field-defining work that will surely be the standard by which global histories of consumption are measured.