Worldly Goods

'Worldly Goods' provides a radical interpretation of the Golden Age of European culture. During the Renaissance, Jardine argues, vicious commercial battles were being fought over silks and spices, and who should control international trade.

Man's Worldly Goods - The Story of The Wealth of Nations By Leo Huberman Originally published in the 1930s, this is 'an attempt to explain history by economic theory, and economic theory by history'. It charts the path from feudalism to capitalism, and then looks beyond capitalism to a perceived socialist future. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive.

In haunting ways, this gorgeous novel prefigures Irène Némirovsky’s masterpiece Suite Française. Set in France between 1910 and 1940 and first published in France in 1947, five years after the author’s death, All Our Worldly Goods is a gripping story of war, family life and star-crossed lovers. Pierre and Agnes marry for love against the wishes of his parents and his grandfather, the tyrannical family patriarch. Their marriage provokes a family feud that cascades down the generations. This brilliant novel is full of drama, heartbreak, and the telling observations that have made Némirovsky’s work so beloved and admired.

"Assured and stylistically confident ... Petersen's knowledge of and precise language for subjects such as natural history, the domestic arts, and music add to the classical feel of these stories, set all around the English-speaking Commonwealth. Crisp sentences and slightly old-fashioned vocabulary combine gratifyingly with evocative visual imagery to make this collection a pleasure to read."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Worldly Goods is a multi-faceted diamond: its carbon base is the stuff of life, and its reflective power is dazzling. Petersen can take a small event and in a few pages create an entire world ... a writer this good needs to be read."—Quill & Quire, starred review “What a thrill to follow a writer from promise to fulfillment. Alice Petersen’s debut collection of short stories … marked her as a young writer to watch. [This] collection, Worldly Goods, more than delivers.”—Montreal Review of Books "Alice Petersen writes as eloquently about the natural world as she does about the world of human emotion and desire."—David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World These lyrical, open-eyed stories are set in North America, England, and the author's native New Zealand. With a focus on marriage, family, and the moral complexities that arise from these relationships, Alice Peterson's fiction evokes the best of Katherine Mansfield and Alice Munro. Alice Petersen's first book, All the Voices Cry, won the QWF Award for Best First Book. Born in New Zealand, she now lives and works in Montreal, Quebec.

Ten essays from a series of workshops in 1992 and 1993 and a conference, probably at Cornell University in 1993, tackle difficult issues raised in making environmental policy when social justice concerns are taken seriously. They cover alternative frameworks for evaluating social justice, the role of states and substate actors in the international politics of the environment, the role of science in framing the debate on global environmental change and its use by various actors, and international negotiations. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Based on vivid court records and newspaper advertisements, this 2003 book is a pioneering account of the expectations and experiences of married life among the middle and labouring ranks in the long eighteenth century. Its original methodology draws attention to the material life of marriage, which has long been dominated by theories of emotional shifts or fashionable accounts of spouses' gendered, oppositional lives. Thus it challenges preconceptions about authority in the household, by showing the extent to which husbands depended upon their wives' vital economic activities: household management and child care. Not only did this forge co-dependency between spouses, it undermined men's autonomy. The power balance within marriage is further revised by evidence that the sexual double standard was not rigidly applied in everyday life. The book also shows that ideas about adultery and domestic violence evolved in the eighteenth century, influenced by new models of masculinity and femininity.

It is well-understood that the consumption of goods plays an important, symbolic role in the way human beings communicate, create identity, and establish relationships. What is less well-known is that the pattern of their flow shapes society in fundamental ways. In this book the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas and economist Baron Isherwood overturn arguments about consumption that rely on received economic and psychological explanations. They ask new questions about why people save, why they spend, what they buy, and why they sometimes-but not always-make fine distinctions about quality. Instead of regarding consumption as a private means of satisfying one’s preferences, they show how goods are a vital information system, used by human beings to fulfill their intentions towards one another. They also consider the implications of the social role of goods for a new vision for social policy, arguing that poverty is caused as much by the erosion of local communities and networks as it is by lack of possessions, and contrast small-scale with large-scale consumption in the household. A radical rethinking of consumerism, inequality and social capital, The World of Goods is a classic of economic anthropology whose insights remain compelling and urgent. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Richard Wilk. "Forget that commodities are good for eating, clothing, and shelter; forget their usefulness and try instead the idea that commodities are good for thinking." – Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood

The crumbling edifice of an English country estate serves as the stage for the lives of four aristocratic women, including a Boston heiress and a lady biographer, and their men--among them, an Italian painter and a poor Cockney chap