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Massgoods represent culture, not because theyare merely there as the environment

within which we operate, but because they are an integral part of that process of

objectification bywhich we create ourselves as an industrial society: our identities,

our social affiliations, our lived everyday practices. (p. 215)

The second part, Material Culture , carries

the

message

that the

medium of

objectification is important, that

physical artefacts have certain properties

and

tendencies which, in an age of rapidly increasing material culture, ought to be

investigated in their own right (129). Such understanding will enable us to

perceive the integrative role that

the

artifact performs in culture and

human

relations. Again,

the

historianwill find great richness here, once

he

has separated

original ideas from distracting verbiage.

Mass Consumption focuses on

the

application of these notions, specifically

in Britain. Part is historical, some ideological, but all are directed toward a theory

of consumption.

The

historiographical rundown of consumption - Braudel,

McKendrick, Brewer, Plumb, Thirsk, and others - will interest historians. The

author draws on Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Douglas and Isherwood, Foucault, Gid

dens, Goffman, Piaget,

and

many others to substantiate his theory. Interdiscipli

nary historians will appreciate the wealth of ideas in this slim volume.

Appadurai s anthology is multidisciplinary - an ethnohistorical dialogue be

tween anthropologists

and

social historians - produced by

the

Ethno-history

Program of

the

University ofPennsylvania. Despite a lack of symmetry in subject

matter, these essaysare uniformly ofhighquality and convey important ideas

that

will, in

tum

evoke

other

ideas. This work is an object lesson in the value of

interdisciplinary approaches to disciplinary research.

Under

the rubric of Toward an Anthropology ofThings Appadurai provides

a superbly critical introduction, and Igor Kopytoff writes thoughtfully

on

The

Cultural Biography ofThings: Commoditization asProcess, which distinguishes

between commodities and singular things ofcultural and individual value in an

homogeneous society.

Under

Exchange, Consumption, and Display William

Davenport distinguishes between

the

material and economic and the mystical

and spiritual values of East Solomon islanders. Alfred Gell, in

the

same section,

focuses on the symbolic dimensions of consumption by

the

Muria Gonds in

Madhya Pradesh, India. In so doing he attempts to indicate the complex inter

action between aspects of peasant societies

that

are

not

usually considered

conjointly:

the

economic transformationbrought about by technological change

on the one hand, and on

the other the

symbolic order that conventional econom

icsassigns to the categoryof tastes. (p. 136) Bothare highly instructive towestern

historians, Marxist and non-Marxist alike, who are conditioned to regard things

as commodities.

ColinRenfrew

and

PatrickGeary discourse on objects of Prestige, Commerno

ration, and Value ; Brian Spooner and LeeV. Cassanelliwrite under the heading

of Production Regimes

and the

Sociology of Demand.

Renfrew in Varna and

the

Emergence of

Wealth

in Prehistoric Europe cites

gold objects discovered by archeologists to argue that adoption of new products,

not

just new technical processes for production, characterize a society. He

believes

that

three variables mutually enhance

the

other: a developing systemof

production and exchange;

the

circulationofgood ofprime value (especially in the

early stages); and

the

emergence of prominent social thinking. (163)

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REVIEWS 155

Geary, in SacredCommodities:

the

Circulation ofMedieval Relics points to

the limits of a commodity theory of goods,

the

view

that

things have value only

for exchange

and

circulation. What of a portion of a saint s body? Admittedly,

such relics were sold, exchanged, conveyed as gifts,

and

even stolen. In showing

how such personal commodities as religious relics elucidated something of

the

complex values of medieval society (188), Geary poses nagging questions for

those who thought they had

the

answers about things.

What

of value equiva

lences of relics, relative values ofdifferent relics, the relative importanceof relics

given as gifts as opposed to those stolen or sold, and, finally,

the

acceptance of

these objects as valuable within

the

broader, lay society of

the

regions into which

they were introduce ? (189)

Spooner suggests in Weavers

and

Dealers

that the

history oforiental carpets

is inseparable from

the

society

that

produced

them and that

a persistent western

enchantment

with oriental carpets tells us

much

about ourselves, our culture

and

history. They [carpets] have

their

own dynamic

and

historical continuity,

and

their relationship with any other cultural or social form is likely to be dialectical

rather than unidirectional (231).

Cassenelli s Qat: Changes in

the

Production

and

ConsumptionofaQuasilegal

Commodity in Northeast Africa examines

the

consumption, distribution, poli

tics, and legal status ofqat, amild stimulant, to whicha variety ofbeneficial effects

have

been

ascribed. Beyond these, qat promotes social intercourse

through

chewing sessions, thus making it a facilitator of new modes of interaction.

Besides being a source of wealth

and

employment,

qat

has become a vehicle by

which political

and

social issues are vented (256).

Under

Historical Transformations

and

Commodity Codes William Reddy

writes about

The

Structure ofaCulturalCrisis:

Thinking

About

Cloth

in France

before and after

the

Revolution and

C A

Baylyabout

The

Origins ofSwadeshi

(Home Industry):

Cloth

and Indian society, 1700,1930.

Reddy will astound some

modem

historians by suggesting

that the

French

Revolution be considered in commodity terms. He subscribes to

the

thesis of

the

Revolution as a crisis in culture, which he documents by noting changing

perceptions of things. Reddy believes

that

a century before

the

Revolution the

thinking about cloth encapsulated

the

guild mentality; by

the

late eighteenth

century thought about such matters was prevailingly phvsiocratic and reformist.

French society

on the

eve of

the

Revolution, he says, had a centuries-old, slowly

evolved set of practices and institutions

that

had

been

brought into question in

the most fundamental way (280,281). Like Miller, he draws

attention

to the

necessary intimacy

that

alwayssubsistsbetween social relationships and things

(282).

Baylyshows how

cloth

-

the

British import

and the

handicraft industry which

it destroyed in India - became, through Gandhi s call to support home industry,

the

rallying cry of Indian nationalism. His belief

that the

history of

cloth

in

India...shows how things could retain

the

quality of

the

peoplewho fashioned and

exchanged them, even in a fully monetized economy (286), illustrates superbly

the

tension between commoditi-zation and singularization that denies

the

Marxian

notion

of the fetishness of things.

This attempt to show

the

interactionofcultural anthropology, archeology, and

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journal of social history

social history is markedly successful, for there is not a weak essay

either

in

substance ormethod in the lot. The historianwill acquire new insights that make

things significantly more meaningful than the discipline has generally allowed

them

to be. Above all, this work epitomizes

the

value of interdisciplinary history

and exemplifies the effectiveness of Miller s dicta when applied to the stuff of

history.

Asa Briggs Victorian Things completes his trilogy, which includes Victorian

eople

and Victorian ities This work on material culture reveals

both the depth

and breadth of his knowledge of Victoriana. is history at its best - largely

descriptive - for he takes his cue less from Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel

than

from Sigfried Giedion whomhe quotes: Thetrue critique of any age

can

only be

taken from the testimony of

that

age....the furniture of daily life...all things we

look at hourly without seeing (28).

Briggs work ispassage through an exhibition. Indeed, his

TheGreat

Victorian

Collection wings us through Crystal Palace witnessing at once the marvels of

that

age and eavesdropping on organizers, promoters, and critics of that great

show. But we do

not stop here. There are others -

the

Manchester Exhibition of

1857, the building of the Victorian and Albert, and even the xposition Tricoul-

eurefor which Gaston Eiffel built a tower.

A chapter on

the

Philosophy of

the

Eye allows a peak into theworld of vision

- spectacles, cameras, photographs, telescopes, microscopes, and even early

cinema. Images of Fame tells how heroes were remembered through statues

Albert was everywhere - wax, and through paper records. Commemorative

artifacts - pictorial prints and transfer images on pottery, images in pottery, coins,

medals, and stamps, to name a few - were hallmarks of

the

age. Parian ware and

the humbler Staffordshires , hardly collectors items in Victorian days, made

pottery a medium for the Victorian message.

Chapters on TheWonders of

Common

Things, Hearth and Home, Hats,

Caps, and Bonnets, Carboniferous Capitalism : Coal, Iron, and Paper, and

Stamps - Used and Unused covered things from coal

and

matches to

telephones and typewriters. The list is endless.

Briggs, unburdened with theory and jargon, has indeed presented his own

portrait of an age bydrawing

attention the

things of Vic toriana. His mastery

of subject and effortless style make this a minor masterpiece which will appeal to

a wider reading public beyond the specialists.

All of these works - whether alien in methodology, remote in subject matter,

or endlessly fascinating as with Briggs - are an instructive lot for

the

historian.

They represent a kind of progression for

the

social historian- from Miller s highly

theoretical anthropological essayand the ethnohistorical anthology by Appadu

rai to Asa Briggs sweeping and erudite history.

One

final point. As one who has written on artifacts and presently writes legal

history, I read these works, motivated by the notion that legal historians should

perceive things beyond narrowly legal perspectives. Ifat times I wondered why

I should labor so long on Miller to extract the insights beneath his heavy layer of

jargon, why I should spend time reading about remote peoples and places in

Appadurai, or why, even, I should try to assimulate

the

mass of detail in riggs-

I now know why. These three works in their totality provide a combination of

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theory, original thought, and sound an d deep scholarship that define property in

new ways.

University

of

Bridgeport

School of Law

ENDNOTE

Albert

Schmidt

1. Lorna Weatherill, Consumer behaviour and social status in England, 1660-1750, Continuity and

Change 1 (2) (1986): 204-205.

Concepts

of

Cleanliness

Changing

ttitudes

in

France

Since

the

Middle

ges

ByGeorges Vigarello, trans. by Jean Birrell (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1988. 239 pp. 39.50).

Here is

another

book

that

will contribute to our knowledge of

human

filth, sewer

disposal, vermin an d smells. Georges Vigarello, working essentially with printed

sources, covers vast grounds; he cites th e most amazing titles, several ofwhichdate

back to

the

late Middle Ages, on human anatomy, child care, cosmetics, dress,

bathing, bathrooms an d ventilators.

To

the nnalesschool' wemust now add

the

'odours school' whose founding fathers, Lucien Febvre and Louis Chevalier,

have

acquired such worthy heirs as lainCorbin, Piero Camporesi and nickLe

Guerier. This particular contribution will tell you what parts of

th e

Frenchman's

body were washed and when, why Louis XIV took only two baths in his lifetime

and how many bathtubs (approximately) existed in Paris during

the

Consulate.

Professor Vigarello's main thesis isfairly simple: in th e last half millennium th e

concept of cleanliness (which, he is at pains to point out, does not mean washing)

has shifted from a visible

human

quality to an invisible one. In th e Middle Ages,

cleanliness was a

matter

of appearance: keep

th e

hands an d face wiped, wear

decent clothing an d don t scratch your fleas too obviously. Today cleanliness is

more of an internalized sentiment, even a psychological state of mind, which

reflects a concern for bodily privacyan d adesire,

even

an obsession, to project that

what is

underneath

-

hidden

from

th e

eyes of others - is actually 'clean'.

The first question that Vigarello therefore has to answer is why, if cleanliness

was merely a question of wearing th e right clothes, were there so many baths in

medieval France. His answer intimates fragrances of Huizinga's

homo

ludens

Bathing, writes Vigarello, was dominatedbynotions ofplay.

When th e

town

crier summoned th e people of Paris to take a bath, as he frequently did in

th e

thirteenth century, he was making a call to a feast of pleasure. Literally, a feast.

Vigarello describes

th e

steam-baths

an d

bath-houses of this period as places for

gathering, eating an d sensual delight.

Thus the

expression 'goingfor a steam-bath'

meant indulging in carnal pleasures on th e fringes of respectability. Evidently,

washing was th e last thing o ne tho ug ht about in a medieval bath.

The plague destroyedthis. Underlying

th e

city ordinances prohibiting

th e

visits

to steam-baths was a theory that immersion in water, by softening

th e

skin an d

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