Consumption for Historians: An Economist's Gaze

Although it is still common to find contributions to the study of consumption that are motivated by the wish to balance its neglect relative to production, the new wave of literature on consumption across the social sciences has grown explosively. It is now well into its adolescence, even if far from maturity. Far from occupying a subordinate academic niche, consumption is increasingly served by a bewildering range of contributions, Glennie (1995, p. 164/5). These draw upon the different objects of consumption themselves, their social significance, the sequence of activities that lead to consumption, and the different sites of consumption across country and household, quite apart from the wealth of illustrations across time and space. Equally varied have been the methods and theories for investigation of consumption both within and across the social sciences, as is evidenced by a number of surveys, which are often necessarily partial, specialised and rapidly dated in their coverage, Fine and Leopold (1993), Miller (ed) (1995), Gabriel and Lang (1995), de Grazia and Furlong (eds) (1996), and Holbrook (1995), for example.1 In short, consumption is a moving and evasive target, especially in view of the array of analytical weapons with which it has been assaulted.