Urban life in the Atlantic world gave rise to new institutions and practices that encouraged the spread of Enlightenment thought. From about 1700 to 1789 the production and consumption of books grew significantly, and the types of books people read changed dramatically. For example, the proportion of religious and devotional books published in Paris declined after 1750; history and law held constant; the arts and sciences surged. Lending libraries, bookshops, cafés, and Masonic lodges provided spaces in which urban people debated new ideas. Together these spaces and institutions helped create a new public sphere that celebrated open debate informed by critical reason. The public sphere was an idealized space where members of society came together to discuss the social, economic, and political issues of the day. Although Enlightenment thinkers addressed their ideas to educated and prosperous readers, even poor and illiterate people learned about such issues as they were debated at the marketplace or tavern.

Another important Enlightenment institution was the salon. In Paris from about 1740 to 1789, a number of talented, wealthy women presided over regular social gatherings named after their elegant private drawing rooms, or salons. There they encouraged the exchange of observations on literature, science, and philosophy with great aristocrats, wealthy middle-class financiers, high-ranking officials, and noteworthy foreigners.

Elite women also exercised great influence on artistic taste. Soft pastels, ornate interiors, sentimental portraits, and starry-eyed lovers protected by hovering cupids were all hallmarks of the style they favored. This style, known as rococo, was popular throughout Europe from 1720 to 1780. During this period, women were closely associated with the rise of the novel as a literary genre, as both authors and readers. The novel helped popularize the cult of sensibility, which celebrated strong emotions and intimate family love. Some philosophes championed greater rights and expanded education for women, claiming that the position and treatment of women were the best indicators of a society’s level of civilization and decency.6

Economic growth in the second half of the eighteenth century also enabled a significant rise in the consumption of finished goods and new foodstuffs that historians have labeled a “consumer revolution.” A boom in textile production and cheap reproductions of luxury items meant that the common people could afford to follow fashion for the first time, if only in a modest manner. Colonial trade made previously expensive and rare foodstuffs, such as sugar, tea, coffee, chocolate, and tobacco, widely available. By the end of the eighteenth century these products, which turned out to be mildly to extremely addictive, had become dietary staples for people of all social classes, especially in Britain.

The consumer revolution was concentrated in large cities in northwestern Europe and North America. This was not yet the society of mass consumption that emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century with the full expansion of the Industrial Revolution. The eighteenth century did, however, lay the foundations for one of the most distinctive features of modern Western life: societies based on the consumption of goods and services obtained through global markets in which many individuals’ identities and self-worth are derived from the goods they consume.