1st Edition

The Consumption of Culture 1600-1800 Image, Object, Text

Edited By Ann Bermingham, John Brewer Copyright 1997
    566 Pages
    by Routledge

    660 Pages
    by Routledge

    Culture does not become 'culture' until it is consumed. This is the radical new interpretation of early modern social history presented in The Consumption of Culture 1600-1800.
    Leading specialists from North America and Europe explore topics such as the formation of a culture consuming public, the development of a literary canon, the role of consumption in the formation of the modern state, elite and popular forms of cultural consumption and the place of women as consumers of culture. The result is an important and rich new approach to the study of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

    List of Tables List of plates Notes on contributors Preface Introduction Ann Bermingham Part I: The Formation of a Public for Art and Literature Part II: Engendering the Literary Canon Part III: Consumption and the Modern State Part IV: The Social Order: Culture High and Low Part V: What Women Want Tables

    Biography

    Ann Bermingham, John Brewer

    'This volume provides some essential introductory essays ... it strengthens interest both in individual acts of reception and consumption and in new methods of research aimed at putting cultural variation over two centuries into its proper contexts.' - - James Raven, Times Literary Supplement

    'These are most important arguments, many will dip into it, and many more would certainly benefit from doing so' - - Business History