Globalizing the Eighteenth Century

I consider post‐colonial approaches to the eighteenth century as an instance of the critical imperative to spatialize history. The most productive point of contact between post‐colonial studies and the eighteenth century is the history of consumption and consumer culture. A global network of economic relations bound geographically dispersed communities together according to the dynamics of production and consumption. Such an approach provides for a more flexible and reflexive understanding of the processes of identity‐production in the age of imperial expansion.