Gerritsen Anne - The global lives of things: the material culture of connections in the early modern world

The Global Lives of Things considers the ways in which things, ranging from commodities to works of art and precious materials, participated in the shaping of global connections in the period 14001800. By focusing on the material exchange between Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia, this volume traces the movements of objects through human networks of commerce, colonialism and consumption. It argues that material objects mediated between the forces of global economic exchange and the constantly changing identities of individuals, as they were drawn into global circuits. It proposes a reconceptualization of early modern global history in the light of its material culture by asking the question: what can we learn about the early modern world by studying its objects?

This exciting new collection draws together the latest scholarship in the study of material culture and offers students a critique and explanation of the notion of commodity and a reinterpretation of the meaning of exchange. It engages with the concepts of proto-globalization, the first global age and commodities/consumption. Divided into three parts, the volume considers in , Objects of Global Consumption. The collection concludes with afterwords from three of the leading historians in the field, Maxine Berg, Suraiya Faroqhi and Paula Findlen, who offer their critical view of the methodologies and themes considered in the book and place its arguments within the wider field of scholarship.

Extensively illustrated, and with chapters examining case studies from Northern Europe to China and Australia, this book will be essential reading for students of global history.

Anne Gerritsen is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Warwick. Her previous publications include Jian Literati and the Local in Song-Yuan-Ming China (2007).

Giorgio Riello is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Warwick. In addition to several edited collections, he is the author of A Foot in the Past (2006) and Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (2013).

The material culture of connections in the early modern world

Edited by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello

First published 2016
by Routledge
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2016 Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello; individual contributions, the contributors

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gerritsen, Anne. | Riello, Giorgio.
Title: The global lives of things: the material culture of connections in the early modern world / edited by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello.
Description: London: Routledge, 2015. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015019553|
Subjects: LCSH: Material cultureHistory. | GlobalizationHistory. | Social networksHistory. | CommerceHistory. | ColoniesHistory. | History, Modern. | Economic history.
Classification: LCC GN406 .G56 2015 | DDC 306.4/6dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015019553

ISBN: 978-1-138-77666-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-77675-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-67290-8 (ebk)

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The Global Lives of Things is a joint effort of several scholars working at the intersection between global history and material culture. Their papers were presented and discussed at several events organised as part of an AHRC-funded International Network on Global Commodities active between 2011 and 2013 and coordinated by the Global History and Culture Centre at the University of Warwick. The Victoria and Albert Museum (Glenn Adamson and Marta Ajmar), the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts (Karina Corrigan), Bilgi University, Istanbul (Suraiya Faroqhi) and our colleagues at Warwick, Maxine Berg and Luca Mol helped us organise a series of events that took place in London, Warwick, Istanbul and Salem. These meetings and a large conference that took place at the University of Warwick in December 2012 allowed us to develop a series of conversations with an increasingly large number of colleagues interested in exploring the ways in which objects be they traded commodities, gifts, rarities, artworks or everyday mundane artefacts came to shape the lives of people across the globe and at the same time created new and sometimes unpredictable connections.

The papers included in this volume only represent a small part of these conversations, and it is not possible to mention all of our partners. A few people shine through their absence here, but deserve special mention. Dana Leibsohn has been an inspiration from the earliest beginnings of this project. Even if circumstances conspired against her, her support and critical commentary has been invaluable for us. Michael North delivered the keynote lecture at our Global Commodities conference, and his work on transcultural mediation, especially of Netherlandish art and material culture was and remains important to us. Several contributions delivered at our workshops and conferences have appeared in the volume Writing Material Culture History edited by Gerritsen and Riello, whilst others will appear in a forthcoming book entitled Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia edited by Zltan Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello.

Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello,
September 2015