Luxury in Global Perspective: Objects and Practices, 1600–2000

Description

Global history is predicated on connections and exchange: how connections between far-flung people, places, and objects are forged through a variety of exchanges. As world history has matured as a field, its practitioners have found the movement of commodities between peoples, places, and time a fruitful vehicle for research and teaching. Studies of 'bulk' items like salt, spices, coffee, and other globally-traded commodities abound, but few scholars have examined the role of luxury goods from a global perspective. This anthology charts the many different contexts in which luxury objects have been used across the globe, ranging from the social practices linked to these objects to their production, exchange, and consumption, as well as how these practices varied over time and space and how different societies attributed diverse meanings to the same objects. Using luxury goods as a conduit, Luxury in Global Perspective enriches our understanding of global history. Cover Half-title Series information Title page Copyright information Table of contents List of figures List of maps List of tables Notes on contributors Acknowledgments List of abbreviations Introduction Methodology Defining luxury The practice of luxury The fragility of luxury Construction of the volume 1 Precious things in motion: Luxury and the circulation of jewels in Mughal India Luxury in the Mughal Context The circulation of gems and iewels in Mughal India Conclusion 2 Diamonds as global luxury commodity Changing trajectories “Mines sufficient to furnish all the world plentifully with diamonds” “The article of trade to which I am most devoted” Of princes, sultans, temple dancers, and bourgeois ladies: The consumption of diamonds Taste in finishing “Diamonds as plenty as transparent pebbles” The finishing industry “returns” to its cradle: India Conclusion 3 Gold in twentieth-century India: A luxury? The religious and ritual significance of gold Gold jewelry at weddings Gold jewelry after the marriage ceremony The economic functions of gold in everyday life The hunger for gold in modern India Conclusion: The question of gold jewelry as a luxury in India 4 Chinese porcelain in local and global context: The imperial connection Comparing Jizhou and Jingdezhen Jizhou and Jingdezhen compared: Kiln technology Jizhou and Jingdezhen compared: Clays Jizhou and Jingdezhen compared: Location Jizhou and Jingdezhen compared: Products The significance of manufacturing for the court The appeal of Jingdezhen’s ceramics in seventeenth-century European accounts 5 Luxury or commodity? The success of Indian cotton cloth in the first global age Introduction A typology of luxury in early modernity Cotton textiles as “positional luxury” in Mughal India Cotton textiles as “ceremonial luxury” in Southeast Asia Cotton textiles as “aspirational luxury” in early modern Europe Conclusion 6 The gendered luxury of wax prints in South Ghana: A local luxury good with global roots Clothing from wax prints: Its form and usage Wax prints – A global history from Indonesia to Europe and onward to West Africa Vlisco – The luxury brand for wax prints Female consumers give the cloth its meaning Concluding remarks 7 From Venice to East Africa: History, uses, and meanings of glass beads The production side: Murano and Venice Different contexts, different meanings Luxury ornaments and small change: The different uses of glass beads “The fastidious tastes of African women”: The changing demand for glass beads Luxury or not? Some concluding remarks 8 Imports and autarky: Tortoiseshell in early modern Japan The natural history of tortoiseshell An abbreviated world history of tortoiseshell Tortoiseshell in Japan Attitudes toward luxury The luxury of import The contradictions of trade Gendered consumption What’s in a name? Politics, economics, and sumptuary laws Fakes and forgeries Conclusions 9 Tickling and clicking the ivories: The metamorphosis of a global commodity in the nineteenth century The global dimension of ivory The value regime of ivory The material dimension of ivory Tickling the ivories Substitutes Protection for elephants Metamorphosis of the elephant: From supplier of raw material to charismatic animals 10 The conservation of luxury: Safari hunting and the consumption of wildlife in twentieth-century East Africa Globe-trotting for trophies: The nineteenth-century hunting world The making of the East African safari Game as luxury: The political economy of safari hunting The decadence of the archaic: Safari as a luxury practice A pastime of the impotent? The end of safari hunting Conclusion: From conspicuous to conscious consumption? Index