A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe: Display, Acquisition and Boundaries

About the Author Jon Stobart, FRHS, is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and the author and editor of many books, including A Taste for Luxury (London, 2017). Product Description Jon Stobart and Johanna Ilmakunnas bring together a range of scholars from across mainland Europe and the UK to examine luxury and taste in early modern Europe.In the 18th century, debates raged about the economic, social and moral impacts of luxury, whilst taste was viewed as a refining influence and a marker of rank and status. This book takes a fresh, comparative approach to these ideas, drawing together new scholarship to examine three related areas in a wide variety of European contexts. Firstly, the deployment of luxury goods in displays of status and how these practices varied across space and time. Secondly, the processes of communicating and acquiring taste and luxury: how did people obtain tasteful and luxurious goods, and how did they recognise them as such? Thirdly, the ways in which ideas of taste and luxury crossed national, political and economic boundaries: what happened to established ideas of luxury and taste as goods moved from one country to another, and during times of political transformation?Through the analysis of case studies looking at consumption practices, material culture, political economy and retail marketing, A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe challenges established readings of luxury and taste. This is a crucial volume for any historian seeking a more nuanced understanding of material culture, consumption and luxury in early modern Europe. Review At last a volume that lives up to its promises. Fourteen authors drawn from across Europe, including leading scholars and new researchers, focus on the complexities of capturing the meaning and impact of luxury and taste in the early modern world. This publication significantly moves the debates forward, engaging with objects and ideas, new perspectives and sources, while consolidating the now vast literature on the subject.Helen Clifford, Curator, Swaledale Museum, UK