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

Empire of Things

a monumental work that deserves a wide audience. It is both a highly engaging global history of consumer culture and a masterful synthesis of a vast body of literature ... There are few truly global histories of consumer culture, and no study is as meticulous or comprehensive. ... In sum, Frank Trentmann's Empire of Things is a masterpiece of historical analysis that offers a wealth of insights into material desire, changing social norms, state policies, transnational connectivity, and other themes in the history of consumption. Indeed, Empire of Things is a field-defining work that will surely be the standard by which global histories of consumption are measured.

Utterly fascinating ... What makes Trentmann's book such a pleasure to read is not just the wealth of detail or the staggering international range, but the refreshing absence of moaning or moralising about our supposed addiction to owning more stuff

You can't not learn something new here ... [An] epic tale

A history not merely of consumption (and attitudes toward consumption) but also of the very idea of goods as a thing to be produced and consumed. Every page fascinates

Stephen L. Carter, 'Great History Books of 2016'

I read Empire Of Things with unflagging fascination ... [Trentmann] is not only an elegant, adventurous and colourful writer, he also manages the tricky balancing act of being eminently sensible and gleefully provocative

Laden with fascinating insights and accounts, the result no doubt of extensive research, this study spans not only six centuries and numerous civilisations, cultures and individuals but also finds time to comment on the beginnings, direction and outcomes of consumerism itself. This is a hugely impressive undertaking and an ambitious narrative

A monumental book on a monumental subject ... Rich and illuminating ... No-one who reads it will think about consumer society in the same way

[Empire of Things] is wider in scope geographically, historically and socially than anything preceding it ... The epilogue to this story of consumption is salutary: history is essential to our understanding of the continuing rise in material consumption far beyond a sustainable level

Jam-packed with telling facts and counterintuitive provocations ... Empire of Things is that rare tour d'horizon that expands your sense of what should count as the subject ... A bracing argument

Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation, was a Moore Scholar at Caltech and has been awarded the Whitfield Prize, the Austrian Science Book Prize, the Humboldt Prize for Research and the 2023 Bochum Historians' Prize. He grew up in Hamburg and lives in London.

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.

Frank Trentmann

I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent

An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. Echoing Tolstoy’s theory of history as the “sum of human wills”, he aims to stitch the scraps of everyday experience into a quilt of grand narrative. This results in a good deal of richness, colour and subtlety

Compelling ... vivid ... fresh ... one of the most impressive studies I have read of German guilt and shame ... an eloquent and original account of the last eighty years of the country’s history

Absorbing... Frank Trentmann's approach is novel [and] his Germans leap vividly off the page, both as archetypes and as complex, multi-layered individuals... an excellent book

In Out of the Darkness Trentmann does something different and extraordinary. He has composed an account of recent Germany that is not primarily political or economic or social, but moral.. [His] moral history is enormous, but never heavy-going: he is a gifted and intelligent writer

Excellent ... Trentmann's study marshals an immense amount of evidence in response to a single basic question: how did Germans reassert themselves as morally oriented human beings?

Remarkably rich . . . Out of the Darkness usefully reveals the roots of [modern Germany's] ethical knots. Trentmann is still hopeful that Germans can untangle them

Out of the Darkness give[s] a deep insight into how Germany and its people grappled with questions of guilt and identity.... navigates complex issues like self-pity, denazification, immigration, reunification and military intervention with refreshing clarity. This book couldn’t be more timely

The [postwar] moral remaking of Germany is a complicated tale. It’s a tale that Mr. Trentmann is well placed to tell... He brings to his challenging subject both the sympathy of a native German and the detachment of an outsider... engrossing

A panorama of German mentalities since 1942

Monumental ... a remarkable book ... original and unique insights into the lived history of the Germans ... succeeds like no other history to combine the width and depth of human voices with an overarching narrative ... stimulating, immensely rich and very readable

Impressive ... shows how German history can be told in a new way

Trentmann adds another layer to the history of events: the accompanying self-reflection among the Germans, with all their contradictions, their conflicts, their insights and errors. This is original, enlightening and entertaining. We find ourselves in these pages and are amazed!

A lively and very readable portrait of German society… which offers many surprising details and insights

He takes full advantage of the sources and gives voice to many contemporaries

Trentmann draws from a wide range of sources, including amateur plays and essays by schoolchildren. These lend intimacy to his portrait of a citizenry engaged in the continuous process of formulating its own views of right and wrong as it debates issues from rearmament to environmentalism

[A] rich, ambitious account of Germany&rsquo;s improbable rise from a moral abyss to a prosperous democracy that is sometimes held up as a bulwark of stability and liberal values&hellip; [the book] remains fresh and surprising throughout, thanks in part to Trentmann&rsquo;s knack for drawing on an astounding range of voices

This history of modern Germany runs to almost 900 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. He aims for a grand narrative but I suspect what will live longest in the reader's memory are the vignettes, among them the bourgeois Bundeswehr soldier in Bosnia who believed that the souls of the savage war criminals around him might be redeemed if only he could play them Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The Germans, 1942-2022

In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. The German people stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and a war of extermination. But by 2015 Germany looked to many to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming almost one million refugees. At the same time, it pursued a controversially rigid fiscal discipline and made energy deals with a dictator. Many people have asked how Germany descended into the darkness of the Nazis, but this book asks another vital question: how, and how far, have the Germans since reinvented themselves? 
 
Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey is marked by extraordinary moral struggles: guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; tolerance versus racism; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe.

Frank Trentmann

Praise for Out of the Darkness

I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent

An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and ...

I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent

An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and ...

I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent

An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and ...

Books by Frank Trentmann

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