Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First

The epic history of consumption, and the goods that have transformed our lives over the past 600 years.

We are what we consume. From Renaissance Italy and late Ming China to today’s shoppers, this is the epic history of the things that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the centuries - showing that rampant consumption is a truly global phenomenon, with a much longer history than we realize.