ABSTRACT
The study of the development and origin of the consumer society has received increasing attention during recent years. Different approaches to the analyses of consumption in Ancien Regime societies have appeared, each attempting to locate the moment of transition in which individuals belonging to different social classes assumed new patterns of consumption, in order to improve their lifestyles, primarily through the acquisition of a range of commodities. The history of consumption and material culture is a field in which the author's find remarkable challenges which historians have to confront by posing a range of questions. The historiography of consumption and material culture has yet to have surpassed its major problems. The Spanish historiography has dealt with studies on consumption, standards of living and material culture. This chapter deals with the commercial dynamism which occurred at the port of Cartagena during the second half of the eighteenth century had as a consequence the formation of a national, from Catalonia, Valencia and Madrid.
