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The article reviews the book "Proper Islamic Consumption: Shopping Among the Malays in Modern Malaysia," by Johan Fischer.

This article reviews Contingent Lives, a collection of essays on identity and material culture in the Cape and Dutch East India Company (VOC) world. This compilation is a substantial contribution to and reworking of a relatively neglected part of southern Africa's past. The focus on identities and cultures, especially of elites and citizens, opens up innovative avenues of enquiry. Yet, warning against the pitfalls of a narrow micro-analysis, this review argues for investigations that take both culture and political economy into account with the view of understanding mercantilism as a temporally distinct imperial project. It is by asking large-scale questions that historians are able to make sense of the numerous empirical studies of the Cape and VOC and link these to international literatures and debates. Most importantly, such an analytical frame prevents the labouring poor from slipping out of view, as it tends to do in this compilation, and draws attention to the importance of class in shaping identities and culture. Contingent Lives: Social Identity and Material Culture in the VOC World. Edited by NIGEL WORDEN. Rondeboch: Historical Studies Department, University of Cape Town and ABC Press, 2007. vi + 612 pp. ISBN 978 0 620 38509 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ioku’s book uses the Japan’s Kanto region (present-day greater Tokyo area) and northern Kyushu as examples to show how, during the late Edo and early Meiji periods, market economies changed as both consumption and commerce increased massively following the Meiji Restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM CONTRIBUTOR]

The article reviews the book "The Globalization of Nothing," by George Ritzer.

The article reviews the book "Consumption and Market Society in Israel," edited by Yoram S. Carmeli and Kalman Applbaum.

The article reviews the book "The Sociology of Elite Distinction: From Theoretical to Comparative Perspectives," by Jean-Pascal Daloz.

The article reviews the book "The King of Drinks: Schnapps Gin from Modernity to Tradition," by Dimitri van den Bersselaar.

Reviews the book "The Globalization of Nothing," by George Ritzer.

Reviews the book "The Consumption Reader," edited by David Clarke, Marcus Doe and Kate Housiaux.

Reviews the book "The Geography of Third World Cities," by Stella Lowder.