This work investigates how the rise of global trade and the consumption of exotic goods fundamentally reshaped European social hierarchies and the concept of respectability between 1600 and 1800. Woodruff D. Smith, a historian specializing in European cultural and intellectual history, utilizes a framework that connects material culture to the development of modern bourgeois identity. He argues that the availability of items like tea, coffee, sugar, and tobacco allowed individuals to perform social status and self-discipline, thereby creating new standards for public and private behavior. The text synthesizes economic data with social theory to explain the transition from aristocratic dominance to a more complex, consumption-based social order.

Scholars frequently cite this text as a significant contribution to the study of material culture and the history of consumerism. Experts note that the prose is dense and academic, making it most suitable for researchers and students of early modern European history.