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Podcast: New Books in Western European Studies
Episode: Joseph Harley, "At Home with the Poor: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, c.1650-1850" (Manchester UP, 2024)
Description: At Home with the Poor: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, c.1650-1850Â (Manchester UP, 2024)Â by Dr. Joseph Harley opens the doors to the homes of the forgotten poor and traces the goods they owned before, during and after the industrial revolution (c. 1650-1850). Using a vast and diverse range of sources, it gets to the very heart of what it meant to be 'poor' by examining the homes of the impoverished and mapping how numerous household goods became more widespread. As the book argues, poverty did not necessarily equate to owning very little and living in squalor. In...