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Cohen, Joanna. Luxurious Citizens: The Politics Of Consumption In Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2017., Jacob Bruggerman
Cohen, Joanna. Luxurious Citizens: The Politics Of Consumption In Nineteenth-Century America. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2017., Jacob Bruggerman
The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era
To what extent should consumption reflect local and national interests? Joanna Cohen has written an excellent book at the intersection of intellectual, economic, and cultural history about how this question was asked and understood in the period extending from the American War for Independence to the post-bellum era. She demonstrates how citizens in the early republic struggled to understand the consumer’s place in the constellation of America’s national interest, asking questions such as, “’Who [should have] access to foreign goods?’ and “Who should shop and how[?]” (52). Although the Constitution roughly framed the relationship between the American government and consumers, …