Empire of Things

Center for Modern European Studies is proud to announce that Frank Trentmann will give a lecture on his latest book Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First (Allen Lane: Penguin, 2016). Following Professor Trentmann’s lecture, there will be comments by Marie-Emmanuelle Chessel (Directrice de recherche au CNRS – Sciences Po) and Jan Petersen (Associate Professor at the SAXO-Institute, University of Copenhagen) and a Q&A session.

After the lecture, there will be a reception with drinks and snacks. The lecture is open for all. Professor Trentmann is a Professor of History in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, in the University of London.

What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers, and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the present. Astonishingly wide-ranging and richly detailed, Empire of Things explores how we have come to live with so much more, how this changed the course of history, and the global challenges we face as a result.

The lecture is part of the Author meets Critics series and is organized by Centre for Modern European Studies (CEMES)  and European Research (EURECO) at University of Copenhagen.