All Hail the Republic of Choice: Consumer History as Contemporary Thought.

In this article the author examines the study of the history of consumers and consumption in the United States. Examining 2 books on the history of American consumption, "The Marketplace of Revolution," by T. H. Breen and Lizabeth Cohen's "A Consumer's Republic," the author concludes that both show consumption to have a political facet. However, he feels that the study of consumption in the United States has not studied encompass questions on the impact of consumption on power structures, the degree of autonomy inherent in the act of consuming and consumer understanding of the significance of consumption. The author is of the opinion that without these and other factors added to research, consumption and the history of it are trivial subjects for close study and that their growth as disciplines tells more about intellectual and academic trends than a historical one.