Gilding The Market

In the fourteenth century, garish ornaments, bright colors, gilt, and military effects helped usher in the age of fashion in Italy. Over a short span of years important matters began to turn on the cut of a sleeve. Fashion influenced consumption and provided a stimulus that drove demand for goods and turned wealthy townspeople into enthusiastic consumers. Making wise decisions about the alarmingly expensive goods that composed a fashionable wardrobe became a matter of pressing concern, especially when the market caught on and became awash in cheaper editions of luxury wares. Focusing on the luxury trade in fashionable wear and accessories in Venice, Florence, and other towns in Italy, Gilding the Market investigates a major shift in patterns of consumption at the height of medieval prosperity, which, more remarkably, continued through the subsequent era of plague, return of plague, and increased warfare. A fine sensitivity to the demands of "le pompe," that is, the public display of private wealth, infected town life. The quest for luxuries affected markets by enlarging exchange activity and encouraging retail trades. As both consumers and tradesmen, local goldsmiths, long-distance traders, bankers, and money changers played important roles in creating this new age of fashion. In response to a greater public display of luxury goods, civic sumptuary laws were written to curb spending and extreme fashion, but these were aimed at women, youth, and children, leaving townsmen largely unrestricted in their consumption. With erudition, grace, and an evocative selection of illustrations, some reproduced in full color, Susan Mosher Stuard explores the arrival of fashion in European history.

It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable. The 'Great Disruption' started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological change like the melting polar icecap. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resources. The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces - yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid. However, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight, and win, what he calls 'the One Degree War' to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today. The crisis we are in represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: old industries will collapse while new companies literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure 'growth' in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff, but quality, and happiness, of life. And, yes, there is life after shopping. The Great Disruption is an invigorating and well-informed polemic by an advocate for sustainability and climate change who has dedicated his life to campaigning for a balanced use of Earth's limited resources. It is essential reading.

This book is a journey through the fairy-tale wardrobe, explaining how the mercurial nature of fashion has shaped and transformed the Western fairy-tale tradition. Many of fairy tale’s most iconic images are items of dress: the glass slippers, the red capes, the gowns shining like the sun, and the red shoes. The material cultures from which these items have been conjured reveal the histories of patronage, political intrigue, class privilege, and sexual politics behind the most famous fairy tales. The book not only reveals the sartorial truths behind Cinderella’s lost slippers, but reveals the networks of female power woven into fairy tale itself.

In the late 1320s, Martha de Cabanis was widowed with three young sons. Mothers and Sons, Inc. shows how the widow Martha maneuvered within the legal constraints of her social, economic, and personal status and illuminates the opportunities and the limits of what was possible for elite mercantile women.

Australia's economy has long been typified by neo-liberal governance, foreign investment dependence, exports dominated by grains, resources and energy, and an industrial structure in which foreign multinational enterprises play the leading role. These factors have not always contributed to stable growth and a strong manufacturing sector. Further, they have not always led to the best outcomes for Australia in its integration into the regional and global patterns. These themes form the focus of this book, which presents an analysis of Australia's economic orthodoxy and its effects. (Series: Global Cultural and Economic Research - Vol. 10)

The division of the Church or Schism that took place between 1378 and 1417 had no precedent in Christianity. No conclave since the twelfth century had acted as had those in April and September 1378, electing two concurrent popes. This crisis was neither an issue of the authority claimed by the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor nor an issue of authority and liturgy. The Great Western Schism was unique because it forced upon Christianity a rethinking of the traditional medieval mental frame. It raised question of personality, authority, human fallibility, ecclesiastical jurisdiction and taxation, and in the end responsibility in holding power and authority. This collection presents the broadest range of experiences, center and periphery, clerical and lay, male and female, Christian and Muslim. Theology, including exegesis of Scripture, diplomacy, French literature, reform, art, and finance all receive attention.

Early medieval women exercised public roles, rights, and responsibilities. Women contributed through their labor to the welfare of the community. Women played an important part in public affairs. They practiced birth control through abortion and infanticide. Women committed crimes and were indicted. They owned property and administered estates. The drive toward economic growth and expansion abroad rested on the capacity of women to staff and manage economic endeavors at home. In the later Middle Ages, the social position of women altered significantly, and the reasons why the role of women in society tended to become more restrictive are examined in these essays.

Reproduction of the original: The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey by Alexander H. Japp