Through a detailed examination of inventories and other previously unpublished records, Carolyn Sargentson offers a new perspective on the history of consumption, and she paints a fascinating picture of the luxury market during the decades that preceded the French Revolution. Her text raises important questions about the life-cycle of objects and the way that they were valued, the trading options of merchants who operated within narrow margins of credit and cashflow, and the relationship between the different groups who were jostling for position and advantage in a competitive environment. The chapters cover the range of the merciers' operations and are based on detailed case studies of families or aspects of trade in specialist markets. Subjects covered include the corporation of the merciers and their business practice, their role in design, imported goods and European imitations, novelty and innovation, the merciers' shops and the magasins anglais.

Do your salespeople feel under extreme pressure to retain accounts or gain new business at any cost? If so, you may be leaving big money on the table. Consider the integrated-circuit supplier representative who lost $500,000 of potential profit on a single transaction, just to "win" a deal that he would have closed anyway at the higher price. Do not make price concessions. Become a value merchant instead. In this authoritative book, James Anderson, Nirmalya Kumar, and James Narus explain how companies in business markets can use customer value management techniques to estimate the value of your market offerings, create value propositions that resonate with your customers, and maximize the return you will get on the superior value that you deliver. Drawing on extensive research and detailed case studies of companies like Sonoco, Tata Steel, and Quaker Chemical, Value Merchants will change the mindset and behavior of your executives, sales management, representatives, and marketers—as well as your customers.

This title examines the structure, scale and complexity of economic systems in the pre-Hispanic Americas, with a focus on the central highlands of Mexico, the Maya Lowlands and the central Andes.

These are turbulent times in the world of book publishing. For nearly five centuries the methods and practices of book publishing remained largely unchanged, but at the dawn of the twenty-first century the industry finds itself faced with perhaps the greatest challenges since Gutenberg. A combination of economic pressures and technological change is forcing publishers to alter their practices and think hard about the future of the books in the digital age. In this book - the first major study of trade publishing for more than 30 years - Thompson situates the current challenges facing the industry in an historical context, analysing the transformation of trade publishing in the United States and Britain since the 1960s. He gives a detailed account of how the world of trade publishing really works, dissecting the roles of publishers, agents and booksellers and showing how their practices are shaped by a field that has a distinctive structure and dynamic. This new paperback edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to take account of the most recent developments, including the dramatic increase in ebook sales and its implications for the publishing industry and its future.

'Luxury in the 18th Century' explores the political, economic, moral and intellectual effects of the production and consumption of luxury goods, and provides a broadly-based account from a variety of perspectives, addressing key themes of economic debate, material culture, the principles of art and taste, luxury as 'female vice' and the exotic.

In 18th century France, letter writing became extremely fashionable, particularly amongst women. In this work, Dena Goodman opens up the world of these women though the letters which they wrote. Concentrating on the letters of four women from different social backgrounds, she shows how they came to womanhood through their writing.

Articles, originally published in the Indian economic and social history review.