Edited by Jon Stobart and Andrew Hann, The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption, a collection of nineteen papers originally presented at a conference in 2012, examines consumption patterns related to country houses of the elite and the nouveau riche. English houses and their owners receive the greatest amount of coverage, but readers will also find examinations of houses in Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden providing points of comparison as well some understanding of the transnational communication of styles and ideas between architects, builders, and owners. The collection is organized into five sections in addition to an informative introduction by Stobart. Authors include university-based historians as well as persons working for museums and various preservation organizations. Writers explore single houses, as in Hannah Chavasse's look at Audley End, and single family's holdings, as in Helen Clifford's examination of Lawrence Dundas and his properties in four countries. Others take a more topical approach, such as Karol Mullaney-Dignam, who explores the consumption of music by families living in Irish country houses.

As Stobart points out, a country house may indeed be the “ultimate piece of conspicuous consumption” (1). Not only was the acquisition or building of the house an act of consumption, but so was selecting an architect or designer, choosing building materials, decorating the interior, and feeding and entertaining the people who lived or visited. Once owners took up residence or as properties passed into other hands, new cycles of consumption began through redecoration and remodeling, often as a response to the acquisition of new titles, inheritance, or simply to keep up with the neighbors. Ann McEvoy suggests, in her chapter on Stowe House, that consumption continues to this day through restoration and visitations to the interiors and grounds of the estates by persons who buy access, a practice that began as early as the eighteenth century. Embedded across the essays is discussion of prominent architects and designers, including Robert Adam, Inigo Jones, John Carr, William Kent, and Thomas Chippendale. To this end, the large number of color and halftone plates enhance The Country House. The one hundred reproductions of photographs, paintings, etchings, and architectural drawings, link the narrative with the designers and owners in important ways.

Inherent in the development of the country house movement was competition among owners. This competition required resources and often near-unbelievable amounts of consumption. Elite men began this rivalry but, as the seventeenth century waned, the increased wealth of upper-middle-class merchants and, later, bankers, allowed them to physically demonstrate their achieved social mobility. These businessmen aped the behavior of the elite at nearly every level, including purchasing property, building grand houses, and filling them with treasures from near and far. Examples of nouveau riche owners include Lawrence Dundas in the eighteenth century and Mayer Amschel de Rothschild in the nineteenth century.

Part three, “Eastern Connections, Adoptions and Imitations,” provides readers with a deviation from many other examinations of the phenomenon of country houses through the illumination of the influence of global trade and taste for goods found outside Europe. Asia and the East India Company, of course, figure prominently here. The contributors cover numerous topics, including chinoiserie, japanned furniture, porcelain from both China and Japan, and a wide variety of furniture, carpets, and objets d'art termed “India” goods. Many of the imports arrived in England via connections with men, often family, serving the East India Company, but others were purchased directly from importing merchants. What was desired from the East waxed and waned with fashion, but one type of porcelain, Kakiemon, or Japan-China, was so venerated that English and German producers began to copy (and forge) it. Furthermore, Patricia F. Ferguson argues, Japan-China maintained an unusually high value on the secondhand market (114–20). Clifford's chapter, “Conquests from North to South: The Dundas Property Empire,” provides an interesting caveat to the veneration of all things Asian. The first major purchase of nouveau riche Lawrence Dundas was the family seat Kerse House in Perthshire, Scotland; several other magnificent homes in Edinburgh and England followed. Kerse, however, served as the site for use and display of goods purchased in India. After Dundas's death, many of the items inventoried in Perthshire apparently took on new importance as family heirlooms, turning up in inventories of several of the family's English houses. Clifford notes that sources do not provide information of why he kept these possessions out of the way of visitors to his most prestigious properties, such as Moor House near London. One wonders if he thought them too mundane or not precious enough for display to persons he wanted to impress (132).

One shortcoming of the collection is the absence of the roles of women. Some papers include information on women, notably Clifford's inclusion of the role played by Lady Margaret Dundas in assisting her husband as he bought property and furnished it, and Karen Felder's inclusion of owner Mary Pleydell-Bouverie's role in the sale of Coleshill House in Berkshire in 1945. While records regarding women are often wanting in the area of business, pushing archival sources farther will likely continue to illuminate more significant contributions of women in terms of decision making on construction, interiors, and general purchasing. In the mind of this historian, there has to be more out there.

The range of articles and topics in The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption, along with the detail in which its contributors discuss various properties and people, provides readers a solid collection. The illustrations and thorough footnotes enhance the book, which will find affection from both researchers and students alike.