Consuming Passions

Imagine a world where only one in five people owns a book, where just one in ten has a knife or a fork - a world where five people out of every six do not own a cup to hold a hot drink. That was what England was like in the early eighteenth century. Yet by the close of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had brought with it not just factories, railways, mines and machines but also fashion, travel, leisure and pleasure. Leisure became an industry - a cornucopia of excitement for the masses - and it was spread by newspapers, advertising, promotions and publicity - all of which were eighteenth-century creations. It was Josiah Wedgwood and his colleagues who invented money-back guarantees, free delivery and celebrity endorsements. New technology such as the railways brought audiences to ever-more-elaborate extravaganzas, whether it was theatrical spectaculars with breathtaking pyrotechnics and hundreds of extras - ''hippodramas'' recreating the battle of Waterloo - or the Great Exhibition itself, proudly displaying ''the products of all quarters of the globe'' under twenty-two acres of the sparkling ''Crystal Palace''. In ''Consuming Passions'', the bestselling author of ''The Victorian House'' explores this dramatic revolution in science, technology and industry - and how a world of thrilling sensation, lavish spectacle and unimaginable theatricality was born.

Product details

• Authors: Judith Flanders, Flanders Judith
• Publisher: Harper Perennial UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.10.2007
• EAN: 9780007172962
• ISBN: 978-0-00-717296-2
• No. of pages: 400
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 198 mm x 40 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Popular Culture, European History, Capitalism, HISTORY / Civilization, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Customs & Traditions, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Victorian Era (1837-1901), c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Economic history, c 1500 onwards to present day, Social and cultural history, Economic systems & structures, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, History of engineering & technology, Consumerism, Modern Period, C 1500 Onwards, Industrialisation & Industrial History, Industrialisation and industrial history