ABSTRACT
Economic historians have neglected the problem for too long, as Daniel Roche and Michael Sonenscher rightly stress. 1 Admittedly, Werner Sombart put luxury at the heart of the development process many years ago, but he has long been forgotten." Later writers concentrated on the origins of modern large-scale industry, on the Industrial Revolution, and on developments that were seen as having announced or prepared its coming, such as the puttingout system or the royal manufactories and other centralized establishments. As a basic characteristic of modern industry is the mass production of standardized and cheap articles, the trades that made luxury goods have been considered in contrast as a dead end, completely distinct from the highway to economic development. To some writers, such expressions as 'luxury goods' or 'luxury industries' are more or less dirty words, and France is often condemned for having unduly developed that sector. Moreover, for a long time, historians concentrated on production and neglected consumption;
GUll 3HR, Great Britain.
