Document Type
Book
Publication Date
2016
Published In
The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, And Colonization In The Atlantic World, 1650-1800
Abstract
In this wide-ranging account, Robert DuPlessis examines globally sourced textiles that by dramatically altering consumer behaviour, helped create new economies and societies in the early modern world. This deeply researched history of cloth and clothing offers new insights into trade patterns, consumer demand and sartorial cultures that emerged across the Atlantic world between the mid-seventeenth and late-eighteenth centuries. As a result of European settlement and the construction of commercial networks stretching across much of the planet, men and women across a wide spectrum of ethnicities, social standings and occupations fashioned their garments from materials old and new, familiar and strange, and novel meanings came to be attached to different fabrics and modes of dress. The Material Atlantic illuminates crucial developments that characterised early modernity, from colonialism and slavery to economic innovation and new forms of social identity.
Published By
Cambridge University Press
Recommended Citation
Robert S. DuPlessis. (2016). The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, And Colonization In The Atlantic World, 1650-1800.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/437
Comments
The introduction of this work is freely available courtesy of Cambridge University Press. This material has been published in The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, And Colonization In The Atlantic World, 1650-1800, by Robert S. DuPlessis. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © Cambridge University Press 2016.