Review
A wonderful book. It is impressively researched, logically organized, and well written. And far more than most accounts of the colonial backcountry, it introduces real people making choices about how to construct their worlds and how to present themselves to their neighbors and friends.
(Daniel B. Thorp
Journal of Southern History 2009)
By salvaging and examining the transactions of one merchant operating in the Atlantic economy of the period, [Martin] reveals much that is valuable about the world of goods and indicates several possible directions for future study.
(Michelle Craig McDonald
Business History Review 2009)
The writing is lively and easily understandable, and the mixture of methods used to study the accounts of Hook and the vast variety of topics addressed result in a book that would have broad appeal to antique and historic house enthusiasts, re-enactors and local historians.
(Mary Ferrari
Roanoke Times 2009)
The best study we have to date of early American consumerism.
(Paul G. E. Clemens
Reviews in American History 2009)
An important contribution to the study of consumption in early America that also provides wonderful insight into the significant role of objects in illuminating the past.
(Adrienne D. Hood
William and Mary Quarterly 2010)
This is a book that quite forcefully offers an interdisciplinary analysis based on the abilities of the art historian and the economic historian, a person at ease with artifacts and dusty will books and skilled at describing local vernacular architecture and long-distance consumer behavior. It joins the list of must-read books for anyone interested in economic behavior and consumer practices in the early modern Atlantic basin.
(Peter C. Mancall
Winterthur Portfolio 2009)
Exceptional. An analytical model that will advance the field of material culture.
(Trudy Eden
The Historian )
From the Back Cover
Winner, Hagley Prize in Business History, The Business History Conference
Cowinner, Fred Kniffen Book Award, Pioneer America Society/Association for the Preservation of Landscapes and Artifacts
Reconstructing the world of one country merchant, John Hook, Ann Smart Martin reveals how the acquisition of consumer goods created and validated a set of ideas about taste, fashion, and lifestyle in a particular place at a particular time—the upper Shenandoah Valley between 1760 and 1810. Her analysis of Hook's account ledger illuminates the everyday wants, transactions, and tensions recorded within and brings some of Hook's customers to life: a planter looking for just the right clock, a farmer in search of nails, a young woman and her friends out shopping on their own, and a slave woman choosing a looking glass.
"The best study we have to date of early American consumerism."— Reviews in American History
"A wonderful book. It is impressively researched, logically organized, and well written. And far more than most accounts of the colonial backcountry, it introduces real people making choices about how to construct their worlds and how to present themselves to their neighbors and friends."— Journal of Southern History
"The writing is lively and easily understandable, and the mixture of methods used to study the accounts of Hook and the vast variety of topics addressed result in a book that would have broad appeal to antique and historic house enthusiasts, re-enactors and local historians."— Roanoke Times
Ann Smart Martin is Chipstone Professor and Director of the interdisciplinary Material Culture Program, Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
