ISBN: HB: 9780300259018

Yale University Press

July 2023

392 pp.

23,4x15,6 cm

46 black&white illus.

HB:
£40.00
QTY:

Revolutionary Things

Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

How objects associated with the American, French, and Haitian revolutions drew diverse people throughout the Atlantic world into debates over revolutionary ideals.

Historian Ashli White explores the circulation of material culture during the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, arguing that in the late eighteenth century, radical ideals were contested through objects as well as in texts. She considers how revolutionary things, as they moved throughout the Atlantic, brought people into contact with these transformative political movements in visceral, multiple, and provocative ways.

Focusing on a range of objects – ceramics and furniture, garments and accessories, prints, maps, and public amusements – White shows how material culture held political meaning for diverse populations. Enslaved and free, women and men, poor and elite – all turned to things as a means to realize their varied and sometimes competing visions of revolutionary change.

About the author

Ashli White is associate professor of history at the University of Miami. She is the author of "Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic". She lives in Miami, FL.