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  3. Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in 18th-century

Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in 18th-century

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问题     Historians have only recently begun to note the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in 18th-century England. McKendrick has explored the Wedgwood firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery; Plumb has written about the proliferation of provincial theaters, musical festivals, and children’s toys and books. While the fact of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain: Who were the consumers? What were their motives? And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries?
    An answer to the first of these has been difficult to obtain. Although it has been possible to infer from the goods and services actually produced what manufactures and servicing trades thought their customers wanted, only a study of relevant personal documents written by actual consumers will provide a precise picture of who wanted what. We still need to know how large this consumer market was and how far down the social scale the consumer demand for luxury goods penetrated. With regard to this last question, we might note in passing that Thompson, while rightly restoring laboring people to the stage of 18th-century English history, has probably exaggerated the opposition of these people to the inroads of capitalist consumerism in general; for example, laboring people in eighteenth-century England readily shifted from home-brewed beer to standardized beer produced by huge, heavily capitalized urban breweries.
    To answer the question of why consumers became so eager to buy, some historians have pointed to the ability of manufacturers to advertise in a relatively uncensored press. This, however, hardly seems a sufficient answer. McKendrick favors a Veblen model of conspicuous consumption stimulated by competition for status. The "middling sort" bought goods and services because they wanted to follow fashions set by the rich. Again, we may wonder whether this explanation is sufficient. Do not people enjoy buying things as a form of self-gratification? If so, consumerism could be seen as a product of the rise of new concepts of individualism and materialism(a preoccupation with or stress upon material rather than intellectual or spiritual things), but not necessarily of the frenzy for conspicuous competition.
    Finally, what were the consequences of this consumer demand for luxuries? McKendrick claims that it goes a long way toward explaining the coming of the Industrial Revolution. But does it? What, for example, does the production of high-quality pottery and toys have to do with the development of iron manufacture or textile mills? It is perfectly possible to have the psychology and reality of a consumer society without a heavy industrial sector.
    That future exploration of these key questions is undoubtedly necessary should not, however, diminish the force of the conclusion of recent studies: the insatiable demand in eighteenth-century England for frivolous as well as useful goods and services foreshadows our own world.
In the first paragraph, the author mentions McKendrick and Plumb most probably in order to ______.
选项 A、contrast their views on the subject of luxury consumerism in 18th-century England
B、indicate the inadequacy of historiographical approaches to 18th-century English history
C、give examples of historians who have helped to establish the fact of growing consumerism in 18th-century England
D、support the contention that key questions about 18th-century consumerism remain to be answered
答案C
解析 信息推断题。本题主要考查论点和论据之间的关系。文章首段首句提及“直到最近，史学家们才发现在18世纪的英国，对豪华奢侈商品和服务的需求出现增长的现象。”接着举例McKendrick研究了Wedgwood公司在营销豪华陶制品方面的极大成功；Humb也著文论述了地方剧院、音乐节目以及儿童玩具和书籍激增的情形。由此可知，作者列举这两位历史学家的例子目的在于说明他们做了相关的研究发现了人们对奢侈商品和服务需求的增加。故答案为C。
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