Collecting Cultures

'Collecting' can be defined as the gathering together of chosen objects for purposes regarded as special. It is of great importance as a social phenomena, as a focus of personal emotion, and as an economic force.
In the past, the study of collecting has concentrated upon the content of collections, but new work in the field is concerned with collecting itself as process, and with the nature of collections as part of our effort to construct an intelligible world view.
The books in this series will explore issues like the social context of collecting, the ways in which collecting can contribute to the creation of identity the nature of material culture and our response to it, and the nature of the museum as the institution concerned with collecting.
Collecting lies close to the hearts of many of us, and close also to our social mind and our ability to understand ourselves and our world. This series is the first to explore this significant and fascinating area of human experience. Objects are our other selves, and the better we understand them, the closer we come to self-knowledge.