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Massgoods represent culture, not because theyare merely there as the environment
within which we operate, but because they are an integral part of that process of
objectification bywhich we create ourselves as an industrial society: our identities,
our social affiliations, our lived everyday practices. (p. 215)
The second part, Material Culture , carries
the
message
that the
medium of
objectification is important, that
physical artefacts have certain properties
and
tendencies which, in an age of rapidly increasing material culture, ought to be
investigated in their own right (129). Such understanding will enable us to
perceive the integrative role that
the
artifact performs in culture and
human
relations. Again,
the
historianwill find great richness here, once
he
has separated
original ideas from distracting verbiage.
Mass Consumption focuses on
the
application of these notions, specifically
in Britain. Part is historical, some ideological, but all are directed toward a theory
of consumption.
The
historiographical rundown of consumption - Braudel,
McKendrick, Brewer, Plumb, Thirsk, and others - will interest historians. The
author draws on Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Douglas and Isherwood, Foucault, Gid
dens, Goffman, Piaget,
and
many others to substantiate his theory. Interdiscipli
nary historians will appreciate the wealth of ideas in this slim volume.
Appadurai s anthology is multidisciplinary - an ethnohistorical dialogue be
tween anthropologists
and
social historians - produced by
the
Ethno-history
Program of
the
University ofPennsylvania. Despite a lack of symmetry in subject
matter, these essaysare uniformly ofhighquality and convey important ideas
that
will, in
tum
evoke
other
ideas. This work is an object lesson in the value of
interdisciplinary approaches to disciplinary research.
Under
the rubric of Toward an Anthropology ofThings Appadurai provides
a superbly critical introduction, and Igor Kopytoff writes thoughtfully
on
The
Cultural Biography ofThings: Commoditization asProcess, which distinguishes
between commodities and singular things ofcultural and individual value in an
homogeneous society.
Under
Exchange, Consumption, and Display William
Davenport distinguishes between
the
material and economic and the mystical
and spiritual values of East Solomon islanders. Alfred Gell, in
the
same section,
focuses on the symbolic dimensions of consumption by
the
Muria Gonds in
Madhya Pradesh, India. In so doing he attempts to indicate the complex inter
action between aspects of peasant societies
that
are
not
usually considered
conjointly:
the
economic transformationbrought about by technological change
on the one hand, and on
the other the
symbolic order that conventional econom
icsassigns to the categoryof tastes. (p. 136) Bothare highly instructive towestern
historians, Marxist and non-Marxist alike, who are conditioned to regard things
as commodities.
ColinRenfrew
and
PatrickGeary discourse on objects of Prestige, Commerno
ration, and Value ; Brian Spooner and LeeV. Cassanelliwrite under the heading
of Production Regimes
and the
Sociology of Demand.
Renfrew in Varna and
the
Emergence of
Wealth
in Prehistoric Europe cites
gold objects discovered by archeologists to argue that adoption of new products,
not
just new technical processes for production, characterize a society. He
believes
that
three variables mutually enhance
the
other: a developing systemof
production and exchange;
the
circulationofgood ofprime value (especially in the
early stages); and
the
emergence of prominent social thinking. (163)
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Geary, in SacredCommodities:
the
Circulation ofMedieval Relics points to
the limits of a commodity theory of goods,
the
view
that
things have value only
for exchange
and
circulation. What of a portion of a saint s body? Admittedly,
such relics were sold, exchanged, conveyed as gifts,
and
even stolen. In showing
how such personal commodities as religious relics elucidated something of
the
complex values of medieval society (188), Geary poses nagging questions for
those who thought they had
the
answers about things.
What
of value equiva
lences of relics, relative values ofdifferent relics, the relative importanceof relics
given as gifts as opposed to those stolen or sold, and, finally,
the
acceptance of
these objects as valuable within
the
broader, lay society of
the
regions into which
they were introduce ? (189)
Spooner suggests in Weavers
and
Dealers
that the
history oforiental carpets
is inseparable from
the
society
that
produced
them and that
a persistent western
enchantment
with oriental carpets tells us
much
about ourselves, our culture
and
history. They [carpets] have
their
own dynamic
and
historical continuity,
and
their relationship with any other cultural or social form is likely to be dialectical
rather than unidirectional (231).
Cassenelli s Qat: Changes in
the
Production
and
ConsumptionofaQuasilegal
Commodity in Northeast Africa examines
the
consumption, distribution, poli
tics, and legal status ofqat, amild stimulant, to whicha variety ofbeneficial effects
have
been
ascribed. Beyond these, qat promotes social intercourse
through
chewing sessions, thus making it a facilitator of new modes of interaction.
Besides being a source of wealth
and
employment,
qat
has become a vehicle by
which political
and
social issues are vented (256).
Under
Historical Transformations
and
Commodity Codes William Reddy
writes about
The
Structure ofaCulturalCrisis:
Thinking
About
Cloth
in France
before and after
the
Revolution and
C A
Baylyabout
The
Origins ofSwadeshi
(Home Industry):
Cloth
and Indian society, 1700,1930.
Reddy will astound some
modem
historians by suggesting
that the
French
Revolution be considered in commodity terms. He subscribes to
the
thesis of
the
Revolution as a crisis in culture, which he documents by noting changing
perceptions of things. Reddy believes
that
a century before
the
Revolution the
thinking about cloth encapsulated
the
guild mentality; by
the
late eighteenth
century thought about such matters was prevailingly phvsiocratic and reformist.
French society
on the
eve of
the
Revolution, he says, had a centuries-old, slowly
evolved set of practices and institutions
that
had
been
brought into question in
the most fundamental way (280,281). Like Miller, he draws
attention
to the
necessary intimacy
that
alwayssubsistsbetween social relationships and things
(282).
Baylyshows how
cloth
-
the
British import
and the
handicraft industry which
it destroyed in India - became, through Gandhi s call to support home industry,
the
rallying cry of Indian nationalism. His belief
that the
history of
cloth
in
India...shows how things could retain
the
quality of
the
peoplewho fashioned and
exchanged them, even in a fully monetized economy (286), illustrates superbly
the
tension between commoditi-zation and singularization that denies
the
Marxian
notion
of the fetishness of things.
This attempt to show
the
interactionofcultural anthropology, archeology, and
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social history is markedly successful, for there is not a weak essay
either
in
substance ormethod in the lot. The historianwill acquire new insights that make
things significantly more meaningful than the discipline has generally allowed
them
to be. Above all, this work epitomizes
the
value of interdisciplinary history
and exemplifies the effectiveness of Miller s dicta when applied to the stuff of
history.
Asa Briggs Victorian Things completes his trilogy, which includes Victorian
eople
and Victorian ities This work on material culture reveals
both the depth
and breadth of his knowledge of Victoriana. is history at its best - largely
descriptive - for he takes his cue less from Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel
than
from Sigfried Giedion whomhe quotes: Thetrue critique of any age
can
only be
taken from the testimony of
that
age....the furniture of daily life...all things we
look at hourly without seeing (28).
Briggs work ispassage through an exhibition. Indeed, his
TheGreat
Victorian
Collection wings us through Crystal Palace witnessing at once the marvels of
that
age and eavesdropping on organizers, promoters, and critics of that great
show. But we do
not stop here. There are others -
the
Manchester Exhibition of
1857, the building of the Victorian and Albert, and even the xposition Tricoul-
eurefor which Gaston Eiffel built a tower.
A chapter on
the
Philosophy of
the
Eye allows a peak into theworld of vision
- spectacles, cameras, photographs, telescopes, microscopes, and even early
cinema. Images of Fame tells how heroes were remembered through statues
Albert was everywhere - wax, and through paper records. Commemorative
artifacts - pictorial prints and transfer images on pottery, images in pottery, coins,
medals, and stamps, to name a few - were hallmarks of
the
age. Parian ware and
the humbler Staffordshires , hardly collectors items in Victorian days, made
pottery a medium for the Victorian message.
Chapters on TheWonders of
Common
Things, Hearth and Home, Hats,
Caps, and Bonnets, Carboniferous Capitalism : Coal, Iron, and Paper, and
Stamps - Used and Unused covered things from coal
and
matches to
telephones and typewriters. The list is endless.
Briggs, unburdened with theory and jargon, has indeed presented his own
portrait of an age bydrawing
attention the
things of Vic toriana. His mastery
of subject and effortless style make this a minor masterpiece which will appeal to
a wider reading public beyond the specialists.
All of these works - whether alien in methodology, remote in subject matter,
or endlessly fascinating as with Briggs - are an instructive lot for
the
historian.
They represent a kind of progression for
the
social historian- from Miller s highly
theoretical anthropological essayand the ethnohistorical anthology by Appadu
rai to Asa Briggs sweeping and erudite history.
One
final point. As one who has written on artifacts and presently writes legal
history, I read these works, motivated by the notion that legal historians should
perceive things beyond narrowly legal perspectives. Ifat times I wondered why
I should labor so long on Miller to extract the insights beneath his heavy layer of
jargon, why I should spend time reading about remote peoples and places in
Appadurai, or why, even, I should try to assimulate
the
mass of detail in riggs-
I now know why. These three works in their totality provide a combination of
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157
theory, original thought, and sound an d deep scholarship that define property in
new ways.
University
of
Bridgeport
School of Law
ENDNOTE
Albert
Schmidt
1. Lorna Weatherill, Consumer behaviour and social status in England, 1660-1750, Continuity and
Change 1 (2) (1986): 204-205.
Concepts
of
Cleanliness
Changing
ttitudes
in
France
Since
the
Middle
ges
ByGeorges Vigarello, trans. by Jean Birrell (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988. 239 pp. 39.50).
Here is
another
book
that
will contribute to our knowledge of
human
filth, sewer
disposal, vermin an d smells. Georges Vigarello, working essentially with printed
sources, covers vast grounds; he cites th e most amazing titles, several ofwhichdate
back to
the
late Middle Ages, on human anatomy, child care, cosmetics, dress,
bathing, bathrooms an d ventilators.
To
the nnalesschool' wemust now add
the
'odours school' whose founding fathers, Lucien Febvre and Louis Chevalier,
have
acquired such worthy heirs as lainCorbin, Piero Camporesi and nickLe
Guerier. This particular contribution will tell you what parts of
th e
Frenchman's
body were washed and when, why Louis XIV took only two baths in his lifetime
and how many bathtubs (approximately) existed in Paris during
the
Consulate.
Professor Vigarello's main thesis isfairly simple: in th e last half millennium th e
concept of cleanliness (which, he is at pains to point out, does not mean washing)
has shifted from a visible
human
quality to an invisible one. In th e Middle Ages,
cleanliness was a
matter
of appearance: keep
th e
hands an d face wiped, wear
decent clothing an d don t scratch your fleas too obviously. Today cleanliness is
more of an internalized sentiment, even a psychological state of mind, which
reflects a concern for bodily privacyan d adesire,
even
an obsession, to project that
what is
underneath
-
hidden
from
th e
eyes of others - is actually 'clean'.
The first question that Vigarello therefore has to answer is why, if cleanliness
was merely a question of wearing th e right clothes, were there so many baths in
medieval France. His answer intimates fragrances of Huizinga's
homo
ludens
Bathing, writes Vigarello, was dominatedbynotions ofplay.
When th e
town
crier summoned th e people of Paris to take a bath, as he frequently did in
th e
thirteenth century, he was making a call to a feast of pleasure. Literally, a feast.
Vigarello describes
th e
steam-baths
an d
bath-houses of this period as places for
gathering, eating an d sensual delight.
Thus the
expression 'goingfor a steam-bath'
meant indulging in carnal pleasures on th e fringes of respectability. Evidently,
washing was th e last thing o ne tho ug ht about in a medieval bath.
The plague destroyedthis. Underlying
th e
city ordinances prohibiting
th e
visits
to steam-baths was a theory that immersion in water, by softening
th e
skin an d
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