Reviews for Anna Ella Carroll (1815-1893), American political writer of Maryland

The average rating for Anna Ella Carroll (1815-1893), American political writer of Maryland based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-01-20 00:00:00 Hannah E Kilburn A fascinating study of material connoisseurship in Ming Dynasty China best read by someone who has a background in Chinese history and art. Six chapters cover the topics of 'Books about Things", "Ideas about Things", "Words about Things", "Things of the Past', "Things in Motion", and "Anxieties about Things"--in other words, a study of the collecting (and accumulation) of 'things' by China's consumers beginning with its gentry scholars, whose collecting interests came to set the tone for the Ming Dynasty's growing middle (merchant) class. Includes excerpts from the 'art critics' of the days exclaiming on what is collectible and desirable (and what is not), and discussions on how demand leads to production (and over-production or the production of fakes to meet the demand for 'antiquities'), and more. Although it focuses on one scholar's (Wen Zhenheng, 1585-1645) treatise, Clunas includes extracts from similar treatises and includes a brief history of the scholarship of 'connoisseurship'. Being a collector of Chinese 'things' myself, I loved the examples of what to (and not to) collect, and how it's a combination of factors (age, provenance, appearance, display) that made an object desirable and worthy of collection (or not) in the eyes of this Ming Dynasty scholar who starved himself to death when his world collapsed at the fall of his dynasty.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-08-01 00:00:00 Walter Stinnett An early application of Bourdieu's Distinction to China. This book helped shift a bogged-down debate on "the roots of capitalism in China" from the production side to that of consumption.