Over the course of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to gravestones, dressing furniture, and prosthetic devices—to explore how elite American consumers assembled objects to form a new civil society on the margins of the British Empire. In this interdisciplinary transatlantic study, artifacts emerge as key players in the formation of Anglo-American communities and eventually of American citizenship. Deftly interweaving analysis of images with furniture, architecture, clothing, and literary works, Van Horn reconstructs the networks of goods that bound together consumers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Moving beyond emulation and the desire for social status as the primary motivators for consumption, Van Horn shows that Anglo-Americans' material choices were intimately bound up with their efforts to distance themselves from Native Americans and African Americans. She also traces women's contested place in forging provincial culture. As encountered through a woman's application of makeup at her dressing table or an amputee's donning of a wooden leg after the Revolutionary War, material artifacts were far from passive markers of rank or political identification. They made Anglo-American society.

Is a famous queen of Britain really bured beneath platform 10 at King's Cross station in London? What is the telephone number of the National Theatre? what is the best place to eat in Worcester? Where is the National Bagpipe Museum? (Hint: not in Scotland) Was Pointius Pilate born in Pitlochry? The answers to these questions and literally thousands more are to be found in David Kemp's fascinating guidebook, The Pleasures and Treasures of Britain. Nowhere else will the discerning traveller find so much diverse and essential information about British culture gathered together in one volume. With the author as your witty and knowledgeable guide, take a tour through nearly fifty cities, from Penzance to Perth, from London to Cardiff and Belfast. Each city section begins with a concise, readable history and a guided walk around the town, planned to take in as many of the significant local sights as can comfortably be included. Next are exhaustive listings, including telephone numbers and addresses, of everything a culturally curious visitor might want to seek out: theatre, art galleries, museums, antique markets, antiquarian and other bookstores, restaurants, lcoal fairs and festivals and more. Finally, under the headings of Artistic Associations and Ephemera, each section concludes with an entertaining collection of local lore, gossip, legend and anecdote.

This book presents new information on the export trade, patronage, artistic collaboration, and the small-scale shop traditions that defined early Rhode Island craftsmanship. This stunning volume features more than 200 illustrations of beautifully constructed and carved objects—including chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks—that demonstrate the superb workmanship and artistic skill of the state’s furniture makers.