Material Masculinities

Material masculinities is the first book-length study dedicated to eighteenth-century men's material culture and consumer behaviour. Whilst scholarship has increasingly acknowledged men as active participants in consumer society, the broader implications of their material interactions have previously remained underexplored.

This timely monograph examines the complexities of men's material lives as they ascended the social hierarchy, the book studies five 'material masculinities' throughout the key stages of life - boyhood, householder, mobile man, discerning consumer, and gentleman sportsman - to highlight how material culture shaped masculine identity formation, experiences, and the dynamics of gendered power. Drawing on an extensive array of historical sources, the book reveals how men relied on goods to construct and perform multifaceted masculine identities. It also examines how their choices, desires, practices, and skills influenced and defined the consumer culture of eighteenth-century England.

Material masculinities argues that these goods played a central role in how men understood themselves during a period of profound social, cultural, economic, and political change - change that was underpinned by men's active participation in the commercialisation of British society in this pivotal period of English history.