- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: HarperPress; 1st Edition edition (21 Aug 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007172958
- ISBN-13: 978-0007172955
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 5.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 91,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Consuming Passions
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for 'The Victorian House': 'This book is a splendidly entertaining read, and it also breaks new ground. No one has ever written so interestingly or wittily about housework.' The Spectator 'Judith Flanders' artful arrangement of fascinating facts brings new life to people (mostly female) and places (all domestic) that traditional history ignored.' Literary Review 'Rich and well ordered, this study casts brilliant light!Curious facts tumble from the pages.' The Economist
Sunday Telegraph
'a world explored with much wit and insight...Flanders is excellent...has every chance of becoming a bestseller.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent reference book,
By Michelle Styles (Northumberland United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (Hardcover)
Ms Flanders has created an excellent reference for anyone interested in the social history of the 18th and 19th cnetury. In this book she charts the rise of consumerism.
It provides insight into diverse subjects as circulating libraries, the growth of the shop, music broadsheets, art, excursions, football and the theatre. Its main failing is that its index is simply not up to the job. I have often had to try to remember where I read a particular bit about Assembly Rooms, or railways - -this can be slightly annoying. The bibliography is excellent. But the criticism is minor compared to the wealth of information Ms Flanders provides. Anyone who is interested in the period, and in particular any historical novelist of the period should have this book on their shelves for easy reference.
44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Could have been so much better...,
By Will Stevens "Will" (Carlisle, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (Hardcover)
This is a fascinating, but frustrating, book. Clearly, Judith Flanders has done an enormous amount of research and is extremely knowledgeable. However, she seems to have followed her nose and researched just those matters which were of interest to her. Take sport, for example: she presents a great deal of interesting information about the early history of football and of bicycling, but she has scarcely a word to say about cricket, or boxing, or tennis, or fox hunting or shooting in Victorian Britain. Likewise, although the title of the book refers to Victorian Britain, large parts of it deal with the 18th century, and the first 37 years of the 19th century before Queen Victoria came to the throne.
The impression that you get reading the book is that Judith Flanders made enormous numbers of notes, then, without reviewing the material critically or discarding anything, rough sorted them by topic, and then sat down to write. For the reader, the result is like wandering through thick woodland, coming across remarkable trees and delightful open spaces, but without the least idea of where you're going, or what's going to happen next. This makes it a good book to pick up and open at random, but attempting to read it from end to end is a deeply frustrating experience.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful treasure-trove of information,
By
This review is from: Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (Hardcover)
This is an excellent compendium of information about the early development of consumerism in the UK. Whilst the criticisms of the other reviewers have some point, the book is bigger than its shortcomings. Its overall effect is to give one a new sense of just how novel our current conusumerist lifestyles are. In other words, consumerism is a modern, manufactured phenomenon. For my part, reading the book means that I will never see mass culture in quite the same way again. Even though Flanders is concerned to tell a story rather than to interpret it, the reader need not be so restricted. I found it immensely thought-provoking and well worth reading.
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