Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First

A wonderfully informative and scary book that explodes many modern myths about the society in which we live. A history designed to focus the debate where it needs to be, on our own collective behaviour.

An amazing book that explores history and countries from a consumers points of view, revealing a lot more about humanity than I would ever have expected. It is like putting on the most unusual filter or tinted colour glasses and seeing a world makedly exposed to its desires and wants removing morality and political agendas to show how even the most powerful of ideologies bend to the will of its consumers and how that feeds all our need and inequities, driving us into the constant need for the new, the better, the bigger, the more powerful, the thing that declares who we are, our status or our lack of it.

An exposition of how we have grown in apatites, and how we have acquired those things we value and at what cost to us and to those that provide them. How this items have changed our society and brought change to others in the farthest corners of the world.

Explaining the conundrum of a consumerist communist China, the fall of the eastern block by the disillusionment of the masses in not being able to acquire like other societies and pushing for change for freedom to buy the same toys we buy.

It reveals the different points of views and morals different societies have had on lending and how it has grown to such a degree it threatens the very system that created it, while being the lifeline to many of our wants and the force behind industry and construction.

A must if you are interested in history and humanity, it will remove a lot of preconceptions and will reveal the consumer in all of us; buy this book, you need it you want it.

I wouldn't. There are much better books on the subject.

No, I quit half way through.

Get Geoffrey Miller's Spent instead. Much better, more interesting, deeper and better written too.

The author just seemed to endlessly list things as they happened through history, there didn't feel like there was a narrative flow or anything interesting beyond stale facts.

Performance was fine, it was the dull lifeless content of the book that I couldn't cope with

Boredom at the long list heavy content that just seemed to wander on and on

Huge volume of material left me speechless. The depth of factual information and sheer amount of it makes this an extravaganza of knowledge!

This is a long book, that's a good thing. Each chapter introduces a series of stories about stuff that I knew little or nothing about. Entertaining in themselves, each chapter had me saying to myself, 'Wow, I never thought of it like that.' Overall they build into a connected whole but you don't have to keep it all in your head to enjoy it. The author doesn't preach or politic.

Mark Meadows' voice is so soothing I often fell asleep listening. He's not boring at all, he just carries me away on the words. Sleep timer means I just skip back ten minutes the next morning and all is well. I find only the best readers have this effect. (Mr Meadows needs to read more novels please, not just crime & thrillers.)

Lots of information and facts about humans and their need to "have things". And in the final few chapters the need to get rid of or recycle our goods. A tough listen and the next time I listen to this title I'll take it in smaller chunks and listen to another book in between.

it's a fascinating subject- but it doesn't work for audio-

I think it's a perfect storm of not very gripping writing and mediocre narration that leads to an uninteresting listen.

Probably best to skim through a print copy.

(I didn't finish)

I enjoyed every second of this book. Informative, insightful, comprehensively researched and thought provoking. The narration was consistently clear, well paced and a pleasure to listen to. I wish this had been around 20 years when I was a social sciences student. I'd have been inspired to pick a much better topic for my dissertation.
Would definitely purchase another of Mr Trentmann's offerings, and I insist that all future recordings are read by Mr Meadows!

Not only does the book have no discussion, seed,d structured ok,e a giant list of bullet points....bit the narrator is immensely annoyingly chopping every, yes EVERY, sentence into a phrase that has an annoyingly and singsong cadence possibly a good cure for insomnia. Even if you can bare to listen the whole book leaves you thinking '....and so?'