Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800 »

Woodruff Smith is Professor in the department of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of Politics and the Sciences of Culture in Germany, 1840-1920, The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism, and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

Tying together of several distinct cultural patterns during this century to create a culture of respectability and its impact on popular culture, trade, politics, social dynamics, and literature, this original and thoughtful work provides a comprehensive and much-needed understanding of the origins of modern consumption and all of its cultural implications.