Lent begins next week, on Ash Wednesday, February 26. Traditionally, Lent has been a season of lament for the church …
We live in a broken world that inflicts violence on other humans, other creatures, and creation as a whole. And often the people of God participate in this violence as much or more than our fellow humans that do not follow in the way of Jesus. We have much to lament: racism, sexism, homophobia, consumerism, environmental degradation, and on and on.
As we lament during the season of Lent, we recommend reading one or more of these books that narrate history in a way that gives shape to our laments. Here are a few book recommendations that are fitting Lenten reading, some tell stories of the church’s sins, others tell the stories of broader sins in which the church has too often participated uncritically.
Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
Frank Trentmann
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 extraordinary story of our modern material world, from Renaissance Italy and late Ming China to today’s global economy. While consumption is often portrayed as a recent American export, this monumental and richly detailed account shows that it is in fact a truly international phenomenon with a much longer and more diverse history. Trentmann traces the influence of trade and empire on tastes, as formerly exotic goods like coffee, tobacco, Indian cotton and Chinese porcelain conquered the world, and explores the growing demand for home furnishings, fashionable clothes and convenience that transformed private and public life. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought department stores, credit cards and advertising, but also the rise of the ethical shopper, new generational identities and, eventually, the resurgence of the Asian consumer.
With an eye to the present and future, Frank Trentmann provides a long view on the global challenges of our relentless pursuit of more—from waste and debt to stress and inequality. A masterpiece of research and storytelling many years in the making, Empire of Things recounts the epic history of the goods that have seduced, enriched and unsettled our lives over the past six hundred years.
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