The literature, far too much of it directly contradictory, on the nature, the causes, the importance in both the short and long run, and the societal impact of the industrial revolution is beyond voluminous. That revolution has been repeatedly re-examined by successive generations of both economists and historians for close to 200 years. Quality of life, standards of living and income distribution are topics that must be considered when examining the macromarketing history of any given country. The data available on these issues in eighteenth-century England leave, by present standards, much to be desired. Nevertheless, it is possible to find publications that throw some light and even more heat on these issues. The Politics of Distribution was the title of Palamountain’s study of how in the 1930s small retailers, feeling their very existence threatened by the development of much larger chain stores, sought to obtain a measure of legislative protection.