ABSTRACT
Historians love to dispute about origins. Because strong traces of consumer interest and behavior go well back in human history, as we have seen, it is not surprising that some components of European consumerism predate the eighteenth century. There was something of a gradual buildup within the larger global context of accelerating international trade and urbanism. And it may be that, ultimately, it will be the later seventeenth rather than the eighteenth century that will hold pride of place for the fuller emergence of consumerism. Whatever the precise boundary line between preparatory steps and flowering, it is clear that a consumer society existed by the mid-eighteenth century in Britain, France, the Low Countries, and parts of Germany and Italy. Some traces also have spilled over into the British colonies in North America, though this will be taken up in a later chapter. Not surprisingly, consumerism first centered in the regions where a commercial economy was most fully developed and where access to global products was expanding most rapidly.
