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

“Empire of Things isn't just an insightful and surprisingly entertaining read, but a crucial one.”—NPR

What we consume has become a central—perhaps the central—feature of modern life. Our economies live or die by spending, we increasingly define ourselves by our possessions, and this ever-richer lifestyle has had an extraordinary impact on our planet. How have we come to live with so much stuff, and how has this changed the course of history?

In Empire of Things, Frank Trentmann unfolds the ...