The study of a past society in terms of what it consumes rather than what it produced is a recent development. Under the direction of John Brewer, the Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies and the Clark Library at UCLA have created an ambitious international programme which analyses the material culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Focusing on Britain and English-speaking North America but also examining continental Europe, the programme uses, among others, the techniques and methods of social, economic and cultural history, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, and art history. Consumption and the World f Goods is the first of three volumes to examine history from this perspective, and is a unique collaboration between twenty-six leading subject specialists from Europe and North America. This volume offers a new interpretation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by examining changing patterns in the consumption of goods and services. Jean-Christophe Agnew Yale University, Joyce Appleby UCLA, T.H. Breen Northwestern University, John Brewer UCLA, Peter Burke Univeristy of Cambridge, Colin Campbell