The study of the desire, acquisition, use, and disposal of goods and services, consumption, has grown enormously in recent years, and has been the subject of major historiographical debates: did the eighteenth century bring a consumer revolution? Was there a great divergence between East and West? D[...]

In the 1890 thriving coastal town of Holliston, Maine, the leading lumber baron's son, Warren Brentwood, III, returns from his years away at college and traveling to take up his position as heir apparent to his father's business empire. Esperanza Estrada, daughter of a Portuguese immigrant fisherman[...]