On collecting : an investigation into collecting in the European tradition

Book

On collecting : an investigation into collecting in the European tradition / Susan M. Pearce.

Summary:

About one in three people in North America and Europe collects something. Collecting is clearly an important social phenomenon and yet surprisingly little is known about how and why we collect. On Collecting explores the nature of collecting both in Europe and among people living within the European tradition elsewhere. The way people collect tells us about their notions of themselves and others, about their relationship to objects, and helps us understand people as consumers. Susan Pearce addresses many of the important issues surrounding the practice of collecting. She considers how European collecting practice is part of an essentially European mentality, how collected objects have cultural value and how the individuals who collect them help to affect the society they live in.

Record details

ISBN: 0415075602 (hbk.)
ISBN: 9780415075602 (hbk.)
ISBN: 0415075610 (pbk.)
ISBN: 9780415075619 (pbk.)
Physical Description: xiv, 440 pages : illustration ; 24 cm.
Publisher: London ; Routledge, 1995.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (p. 414-428) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Collecting processes -- Themes and parameters -- Archaic themes of the long term -- Mediterranean themes -- Early modernist collectors -- Classic modernist collecting -- Collecting in a post-modernist world -- Collecting culture -- Collecting ourselves -- Controlling collecting -- Engendering collections -- Collecting relationships -- Collecting in time -- Collecting in space -- Material identities -- Political parameters -- The politics of value -- Collecting the other, within and without -- The other beyond and before -- Collecting the shape of things to come -- Relating collective values -- Vested interests -- Collecting in the European tradition.