In Small Things Forgotten: The Georgian World View, Material Culture and the Consumer Revolution

Abstract

The publication of The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology, a festschrift in honour of James Deetz, makes a useful starting point for assessing the remarkable development of American historical archaeology over the last four decades. The discipline of ‘historical archaeology’ is the New World equivalent of British post-medieval archaeology. It is the study of the material culture of colonial and industrial America. Unlike its highly marginalised British counterpart, the discipline has seen an enormous growth in America over the last two decades, reflected in the creation of numerous posts both in universities and public-sector archaeology. This article seeks firstly to discuss some of the main contributions to the festchrift and areas of promise for future research. Secondly it will assess the relevance of some recent contributions on the history of consumption to Deetz's concept of the ‘Georgian world view’ and the notion of radical change in eighteenth-century material culture.