Description
Book SynopsisExplores the intriguing question of how Americans became the world’s consummate consumers. Cary Carson addresses the intriguing question of how Americans developed the reputation for avid consumption. Both elegantly written and engagingly argued, the book reveals how the rise of the gentry culture in eighteenth-century North America gave rise to a consumer economy.
Trade ReviewFace Value is a coda to a career, building on and synthesizing the innovative interpretations which are the hallmark of all of Cary Carson’s thinking and writing. This book will fundamentally change material culture scholarship. It challenges the way social, cultural, and economic historians think about consumer behavior in early America and will quickly become the book that everyone interested in the meaning of everyday things must read to participate in the lively discussions that will follow its publication. –Carter L. Hudgins, Director, Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, Clemson University.
