History and material culture: a student's guide to approaching alternative sources

Abstract

Harvey opens up the discussion on sources to those beyond the 'traditional' textual ones, and into the material realm. Through 12 chapters different historians look at a variety of material sources from around the world and across centuries to assess how such sources can be used to study history.

Contents

Things that shape history : material culture and historical narratives / Giorgio Riello -- Ornament as evidence / Andrew Morrall -- Back yards and beyond : landscapes and history / Marina Moskowitz -- Draping the body and dressing the home : the material culture of textiles and clothes in the Atlantic world, c. 1500-1800 / Beverly Lemire -- Using buildings to understand social history : Britain and Ireland in the seventeenth century / Anne Laurence -- Object biographies : from production to consumption / Karin Dannehl -- Regional identity and material culture / Helen Berry -- Objects and agency : material culture and modernity in China / Frank Dikötter -- Mundane materiality, or, should small things still be forgotten? Material culture, microhistories and the problem of scale / Sara Pennell -- The case of the missing footstool : reading the absent object / Glenn Adamson.