Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods [Hardcover]

'Luxury in the 18th Century' explores the political, economic, moral and intellectual effects of the production and consumption of luxury goods, and provides a broadly-based account from a variety of perspectives, addressing key themes of economic debate, material culture, the principles of art and taste, luxury as 'female vice' and the exotic.Introduction PART ONE: DEBATES The Rise and Fall of the Luxury Debates Mandeville, Rousseau and the Political Economy of Fantasy Luxury in the Dutch Golden Ages in Theory and Practice Aestheticizing the Critique of Luxury: Smollett's Humphry Clinker PART TWO: DELECTABLE GOODS Furnishing Discourses: Readings of a Writing Desk in Eighteenth-Century France The Circulation of Luxury Goods in Eighteenth-Century Paris: Social Distribution and an Alternative Currency Custom or Consumption? Plebeian Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England PART THREE: BEAUTY, TASTE AND SENSIBILITY From the Moral Mound to the Material Maze: Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty From Luxury to Comfort and Back Again: Landscape Architecture and the Cottage in Britain and America Vase Mania PART FOUR: A FEMALE VICE? WOMEN AND LUXURY Performing Roxane: The Oriental Woman as the Sign of Luxury in Eighteenth-Century Fictions Luxury, Satire and Prostitute Narratives Luxury, Industry and Charity: Bluestocking Culture Displayed PART FIVE: LUXURY AND THE EXOTIC Luxuries or Not? Consumption of Silk and Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century China Luxury, Clothing and Race in Spanish America Asian Luxuries and the Making of the European Consumer Revolution

'This volume significantly advances our knowledge of the topic and makes clear, once and for all, that a decisive change occurred in the long eighteenth century. It also...points the way forward to an approach that combines an account of values and beliefs with the detailed analysis of specific material goods.' - John Brewer, John and Marion Sullivan University Professor, University of Chicago, USA

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