The Lives in Objects

“Sheds light on British-Native relations and further illuminates the market of the 18th-century Southeast. Highly recommended.” — CHOICE

“An insightful analysis of some of the earliest discussions among British settlers and native people over the terms of commodity exchange in the American Southeast.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“This well-written book deals with the exchange of goods between southeastern Indians and British colonists from their first encounter until the 1750’s.” — Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers

“Tracing the lives of objects as well as Stern has done reveals much about the lives of people who made, exchanged, and consumed the objects, about the limits of consumer revolution, and about the intricacies of human encounters.” — The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Provides scholars and students of the region with detailed evidence of the emerging world system and, in particular, how individuals shaped and contributed to the character of commodity exchange and consumption in the early American South.” — The Journal of Southern History

“Stern’s work will undoubtedly occupy a well-earned place in scholarship on Indigenous political economy for years to come.”—American Indian Quarterly

“Stern’s extensively researched book on material culture is a much-needed history of the colonial and Native American labor and trade economy. She clearly demonstrates the resiliency of Southeastern Native cultures during a time of intense change in the exchange system.”—Winterthur Portfolio

“Effectively intervenes in a number of scholarly debates and is sure to spark future studies about the effects of trade within specific Native societies, the power of Atlantic economic networks, and the strength of indigenous resistance to British colonialism.”—H-Net Reviews

“In this beautifully styled work, Jessica Yirush Stern opens the scholarly door to examine the meanings behind gift exchanges and trade for both colonists and Indians. The Lives in Objects is one of the best demonstrations of the argument that, although both the British and Indians were transformed through their trade relations, these transformations were shaped by long-term cultural continuities.” — Robbie Ethridge, author of From Chicaza to Chickasaw

“Broad in its geographic and chronological scope, The Lives in Objects promises to change the way we think about European and Indian trade in the early Southeastern United States.” — Timothy Shannon, Gettysburg College