houlette's review against another edition
3.0
Chock full of interesting details, but ultimately not cohesive enough to keep this massive tome from being overwhelming.
losthitsu's review against another edition
4.0
Wouldn't have guessed it from the title but this was refreshingly nuanced and without a trace of the moralising tone and scaremongering most consumerism discourse seems to be keen on. It also doesn't happen very often that a book with such a global outlook actually manages to correctly interpret the history of such an often-forgotten part of the world as Eastern Europe. I wish the chapters had a bit more structure and offered brief conclusions, as particularly the earlier history felt rather anecdote-heavy and I found it difficult to pay attention - this might have to do with the fact that this is not the most suitable format for an audiobook (although the narrator's performance was stellar - full marks and not only because his German pronunciation was really good).
ashepard11's review against another edition
2.0
Lots of good info, but so dry. Too much of a slog to read all the way through
nghia's review against another edition
2.0
This book simply tries to do too much. A history of every non-essential thing in every country across five hundred years. In the introduction Trentmann writes "My intention has been to follow major themes across time and space, not to try to be encyclopaedic." But the resulting book very much comes across as "encyclopaedic". How can it not when it has frequent passages such as this one from 1609 listing the Chinese goods for sale to the Spanish in Manila.
And that's hardly an isolated occurrence. I just felt...weary...reading this. I struggled to see the forest for the trees, constantly buried in an avalanche of factoids, such as
I struggled to discern what the "major themes across time and space" were...other than the obvious "once people started having more than subsistence incomes they were able to start affording other things, what those things were was a complicated contingency of history and geography".
This isn't to say the book is terrible or has nothing interesting to say. Simply that the chaff outweighed the wheat for me. For every section on how "cotton [...] was the first truly global mass consumer good" there we be sections that retread the Great Divergence (between Europe and Asia/rest of the world) debate without adding much.
To some extent that is unavoidable -- how could such an all-encompassing topic like "the things we spend money on" not end-up touching on colonialism, post-colonialism, industrialization, religion, feminism, child labor, and so much more. So even as I disliked Trentmann's totalizing approach, I also struggled to see how he could have meaningfully reduced it without gutting the story and turning into another overly-simplistic "how coffee changed the world" type book.
At the end I felt like Trentmann's main message was, "Wow, everything is just vastly more complicated and interrelated than you can imagine and even 800+ pages I can only scrape the surface". But...at that point I begin to think the book has set itself an impossible task: this kind of book is doomed to failure, I think. The topic is just too broad.
white cotton cloth of different kinds and qualities, for all uses . . . many bed ornaments, hangings, coverlets, and tapestries of embroidered velvet; . . . tablecloths, cushions, and carpets . . . copper kettles . . . little boxes and writing-cases; beds, tables, chairs, and gilded benches, painted in many figures and patterns; . . . numberless other gewgaws and ornaments of little value and worth, which are esteemed among the Spaniards; besides a quantity of fine crockery of all kinds; . . . beads of all kinds . . . and rarities – which, did I refer to them all, I would never finish, nor have sufficient paper for it
And that's hardly an isolated occurrence. I just felt...weary...reading this. I struggled to see the forest for the trees, constantly buried in an avalanche of factoids, such as
In the early seventeenth century, for example, men and women in Bondorf and Gebersheim, two villages in Württemberg, Germany, owned 3 and 12 articles of clothing respectively. A century later, the number had shot up to 16 and 27 pieces. By 1800, it had doubled again.
I struggled to discern what the "major themes across time and space" were...other than the obvious "once people started having more than subsistence incomes they were able to start affording other things, what those things were was a complicated contingency of history and geography".
This isn't to say the book is terrible or has nothing interesting to say. Simply that the chaff outweighed the wheat for me. For every section on how "cotton [...] was the first truly global mass consumer good" there we be sections that retread the Great Divergence (between Europe and Asia/rest of the world) debate without adding much.
To some extent that is unavoidable -- how could such an all-encompassing topic like "the things we spend money on" not end-up touching on colonialism, post-colonialism, industrialization, religion, feminism, child labor, and so much more. So even as I disliked Trentmann's totalizing approach, I also struggled to see how he could have meaningfully reduced it without gutting the story and turning into another overly-simplistic "how coffee changed the world" type book.
At the end I felt like Trentmann's main message was, "Wow, everything is just vastly more complicated and interrelated than you can imagine and even 800+ pages I can only scrape the surface". But...at that point I begin to think the book has set itself an impossible task: this kind of book is doomed to failure, I think. The topic is just too broad.
wanserjc's review against another edition
4.0
A large, broad-brush look at changes in our consumption of material goods over the last few hundred years. Worldwide in scope, and providing a historical perspective lacking in much contemporary thought about affluence, economic models, and environmental consequences, it's a very useful antidote to simplistic answers. It is also intense, and at nearly 700 pages of text, a bear to get through.
annagrac's review against another edition
5.0
Dealing with the elephant in the room first - this book is huge and dense and scary, don't let it put you off! It is a remarkable work that provides an amazing insight into how people have lived, what they treasured and how tastes have changed. It is remarkable not just how much changes, but also how much stays the same.
Part 1 of the book provides a chronological view of material possessions which occasionally gets bogged down and over-whelming, but stick with it. Part 2 takes a thematic approach drawing on the lessons of part 1 and looking at topics such as products for children and the elderly, nationalism/localism, waste & recycling and religions & welfare.
It's very fascinating and gives you a lot of information to process.
As an aside - the cover is beautiful. Well done to whoever designed The Empire of Things to be such a pretty "thing" itself.
Part 1 of the book provides a chronological view of material possessions which occasionally gets bogged down and over-whelming, but stick with it. Part 2 takes a thematic approach drawing on the lessons of part 1 and looking at topics such as products for children and the elderly, nationalism/localism, waste & recycling and religions & welfare.
It's very fascinating and gives you a lot of information to process.
As an aside - the cover is beautiful. Well done to whoever designed The Empire of Things to be such a pretty "thing" itself.
cups's review against another edition
3.0
A whopping big boi this was! Took me a good 6 weeks of setting daily reading goals as you know was in the midst of moving countries and attending weddings. I had tried to read this book a year ago but lost hope after 50 pages! Alas we have finished him up and would recommend but only if you're in no rush to finish up a book. This book is MASSIVE but very interesting, one can get bogged down in the details as it is largely details. But learned lots of fun and yet always slightly depressing facts. Let's start with a wild one for you! "As late as 1700, all European ships combined brought back from Asia 230,000 tonnes of goods a year, an amount that would into two big container ships today"
However, it's an oversimplification to say that the post WW2 era was the catalyst for the consumer society because sadly, we've had the desire to be consumers for a good few centuries now. The post WW2 era just created a wild boom in consumption to sustain the factories. Interestingly what really changed is state sponsorship of consumerism. For example, in the 15th and 16th century quite a few European countries such as Italy and the Netherlands had anti consumption laws to prevent sumptuous lifestyles. In Venice there laws went so far as to dictate how much cutlery a couple could receive as wedding presents. Goods also tended to be in circulation more than they are now, with semi bartering systems in place in pawn shops. It became clear as I read this that governments need to get more involved and stop leaving it to consumers and companies. (Obviously not to this degree but we would never have reached this level of consumption without government)
This book also showed that there's no one path to consumption as so many countries have followed different models to get to pretty much the same level. Germany and the US followed different models (Americans used more credit whilst Germans saved money and don't use credit but production and waste remains relatively equal.)
This book does a good job of not having a Eurocentric approach and focused on Asian countries and their shift in consumption as well. It also explained the way slave and colonialist goods were brought into Europe and how they were marketed. Lots of fun history about 'staples' of European diets. Coffee had to be remade into a different style of drink in Europe to make it refined enough to be drank, same with tea if I'm not remembering wrong.
Also the spread of these drinks was mostly due the industrial revolution as people needed to be caffeine-ed up. As late as 1724 all of England made do with 660 tons of coffee a year, which if divided equally, is one weak cup every 3 weeks. Tea consumption was barely higher than this.
The last 100 pages focused heavily on our current consumption and how insane it is. The fact that we seem to be shifting from physical gift giving to experience gifts does nothing in terms of our impact on the planet. Our increased standards of living are also something to contend with and seem unsustainable but I'm just hoping we get some AI to fix it bc I do like showering more than once a week. Moreover it seems our recycling is more just a way to make ourselves feel better and really not enough to be tackling climate change. Interestingly though eliminating food waste would do wonders! Appaz "if Britons were to buy only the food they would actually eat, they would cut CO2 emissions by 17 million tonnes - equivalent to taking every 5th car off the roads. " A fun food for thought if you'll excuse the pun!!
Anyways theres way too much in this book to list, but yeah learned a lot (that I need to write down or I will forget in about a week tops) and would recommend if one has the patience for it. We all need to be minimalists (tell that to the Sarah that bought 9 plants this week) the end thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
However, it's an oversimplification to say that the post WW2 era was the catalyst for the consumer society because sadly, we've had the desire to be consumers for a good few centuries now. The post WW2 era just created a wild boom in consumption to sustain the factories. Interestingly what really changed is state sponsorship of consumerism. For example, in the 15th and 16th century quite a few European countries such as Italy and the Netherlands had anti consumption laws to prevent sumptuous lifestyles. In Venice there laws went so far as to dictate how much cutlery a couple could receive as wedding presents. Goods also tended to be in circulation more than they are now, with semi bartering systems in place in pawn shops. It became clear as I read this that governments need to get more involved and stop leaving it to consumers and companies. (Obviously not to this degree but we would never have reached this level of consumption without government)
This book also showed that there's no one path to consumption as so many countries have followed different models to get to pretty much the same level. Germany and the US followed different models (Americans used more credit whilst Germans saved money and don't use credit but production and waste remains relatively equal.)
This book does a good job of not having a Eurocentric approach and focused on Asian countries and their shift in consumption as well. It also explained the way slave and colonialist goods were brought into Europe and how they were marketed. Lots of fun history about 'staples' of European diets. Coffee had to be remade into a different style of drink in Europe to make it refined enough to be drank, same with tea if I'm not remembering wrong.
Also the spread of these drinks was mostly due the industrial revolution as people needed to be caffeine-ed up. As late as 1724 all of England made do with 660 tons of coffee a year, which if divided equally, is one weak cup every 3 weeks. Tea consumption was barely higher than this.
The last 100 pages focused heavily on our current consumption and how insane it is. The fact that we seem to be shifting from physical gift giving to experience gifts does nothing in terms of our impact on the planet. Our increased standards of living are also something to contend with and seem unsustainable but I'm just hoping we get some AI to fix it bc I do like showering more than once a week. Moreover it seems our recycling is more just a way to make ourselves feel better and really not enough to be tackling climate change. Interestingly though eliminating food waste would do wonders! Appaz "if Britons were to buy only the food they would actually eat, they would cut CO2 emissions by 17 million tonnes - equivalent to taking every 5th car off the roads. " A fun food for thought if you'll excuse the pun!!
Anyways theres way too much in this book to list, but yeah learned a lot (that I need to write down or I will forget in about a week tops) and would recommend if one has the patience for it. We all need to be minimalists (tell that to the Sarah that bought 9 plants this week) the end thank you for coming to my TedTalk.