Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order industry both exploited and generated social networks in building its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency system; Sales were made through catalogs held by agents, ordinary people in families, neighborhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces. Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to obtain vital information on credit worthiness.
In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order industry, the authors...

This novel by a professional philosopher explores issues and mysteries related to consciousness, personal identity, gender, race, and culture. Its main characters are two sets of conjoined twins, one set male and white - imprisoned in Canada; the other set female and black - isolated in a remote southern African village. Each set of twins is based on documented cases of two heads fused into one body.
The novel's through line is a love story, beginning with each pair of twins searching for their anomalous counterparts and ending with their eventual marriage on the Internet. They never...

Credit and Community examines the history of consumer credit and debt in working class communities. Concentrating on forms of credit that were traditionally very dependent on personal relationships and social networks, such as mail-order catalogues and co-operatives, it demonstrates how community-based arrangements declined as more impersonal forms of borrowing emerged during the twentieth century.
Tallymen and check traders moved into doorstep money-lending during the 1960s, but in subsequent decades the loss of their best working class customers, owing to increased spending power and...