[Review] Goods, Power, History: Latin America's Material Culture
Abstract
On one level Goods, Power, History: Latin America’s Material
Culture is about the history of consumption of products in the
Americas from pre-Columbian to modern times. The author, Arnold
J. Bauer, professor of history at the University of California, Davis,
states as much: “The present book emphasizes the core items of
material life—food, clothing, shelter, and the organization of public
space— in both their rudimentary and elaborate manifestations” (pp.
xv-xvi). On a much more sophisticated and integrative level, this book
is a tour de force or compendium of Dr. Bauer’s distinguished body
of work concerning the asymmetrical relationship between people,
things and power in Latin America.
