Stuff

‘Compelling… and alarming.’

-- The New Yorker
‘Colwell is chilling about our material addiction… 'Stuff' is lavishly illustrated, filled with enticing graphs, graphics and images.’ -- iNews

‘Engaging.’

-- Inside Higher Ed

‘An engrossing introduction for nonexperts into the big questions of material culture studies.’

-- Science

‘Archeologist Colwell does an entertaining and expansive dive into how humans evolved into diehard consumers (hint: that transformation began almost three million years ago).'

-- Toronto.com

'A marvellously fascinating journey through our overstuffed world. Entertaining, inspiring and alarming in equal measure, I found myself learning new things from nearly every page.'

-- Ed Conway, Sky News, author of Material World

'Incredibly fresh, engaging and urgent. Chip Colwell will profoundly shift how you see your world and the mountains of stuff in it.'

-- Farrah Jarral, writer, broadcaster and author of Anima

'A fascinating, beautifully written, provocative history of how humans acquire stuff. This is a notable, at times humorous, reflection on the excesses of consumerism since prehistoric times, of relevance to all of us, rich or poor.'

-- Brian Fagan, author of A Little History of Archaeology

'Humans have too much stuff, and it is breaking the planet. Colwell brilliantly relates how and why we got here. His engaging, fun narrative through deep history and across societies describes our intense relations to the stuff we make, dream about and accumulate. Most importantly, he offers us a path to more just, equitable and sustainable lives.'

-- Agustin Fuentes, author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being

'This eminently readable book reveals the very stuff that makes us human around the world, from stone tools to fast fashion. Stuff asks how we became so attached to so many things, and whether we’ll ever be able to survive without them.

-- Lynn Meskell, author of A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace