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Everyday life for many in early America involved endless rounds of backbreaking labor, grueling travel into dense forests, across frozen rivers, or through putrid swamps, and the ever-present risk of illness, accident, and injury. How did early Americans cope...

I began this project (The Trouble with Tea: the Politics of Consumption in the Eighteenth-Century Global Economy) more than a decade ago driven by an interest in consumerism, corporate culture, and the commodification of contemporary life. At that time, we saw...