Necessary Luxuries

Matt Erlin considers books and the culture around books during this period, focusing specifically on Germany where literature, and the fine arts in general, were the subject of soul-searching debates over the legitimacy of luxury.

Between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, gilds were the basis of industrial and commercial organization in England. Surprisingly, however, the disappearance of gilds has been neglected by historians. In The Most Necessary Luxuries, Ronald Berger uses the Mercers' Company of Coventry to follow the eclipse of an entire trading community in one of England's premier medieval cities and manufacturing centers. Berger charts the difficulties faced by mercers and grocers in a growing capitalist economy and discusses their unsuccessful efforts to maintain their prosperity. The book helps to explain both the development of a new urban system and the rise of shops in Midland England. It shows how shops replaced markets and fairs and uses the economics of the fashion trades to explain why provincial shops could not overcome the competition put forward by the metropolis. The Most Necessary Luxuries unites the fields of social, urban, and economic history to explain the decline of a medieval city, the evolution of the English urban middle class, and the transformation from an amalgam of wealthy wholesalers and distributors of luxury goods to an association of mere shopkeepers. It demonstrates that the rise of commercial capitalism between 1550 and 1700 in England undermined the medieval economy that was based on protected markets, restrictive trading practices, and entrenched oligarchies that dominated towns.

NECESSARY LUXURIES Topher Payne just wants a little peace, and to settle down with someone nice. Both seem to consistently elude him. Always leaving the house with the best of intentions, he somehow manages to humiliate himself in front of Martha Stewart, wander onto a porn set, steal a cat, get in an alley fight in Ireland, march with gay Native Americans in the New York Pride Parade, and serve as best man at a Las Vegas transsexual wedding. Topher tries to hold out hope for a Mr. Right who'll accept his life of almost-manageable chaos. Along the way he discovers that maintaining a happy life takes more than the bare essentials everyone requires a few necessary luxuries.