04
Six Themes
T HE
B O O K
'
S
G O VE RNING
Q UE S T IO NS
The Melancholy of Improvement
Each
new
ware
displaced
an
older
craft
.
Moon
reads
the
century
'
s
technical
triumph
as
,
in
part
,
an
elegy
for
the
handmade
world
that
industrialization
was
erasing
.
The Fragment and the Copy
Wedgwood
'
s
reproductions
of
antique
vases
—
above
all
the
Portland
Vase
—
made
the
ruin
a
mass
-
produced
ideal
and
raised
unsettling
questions
about
the
status
of
the
copy
.
The Industrial Body
Wedgwood
'
s
own
amputated
leg
,
and
the
lung
disease
that
felled
his
flint
-
grinders
,
gave
"
improvement
"
a
physical
price
.
In
Moon
'
s
telling
,
the
potter
'
s
body
was
the
first
site
of
industrial
injury
.
The Whiteness of Classicism
The
white
reliefs
of
jasperware
on
their
colored
grounds
were
not
merely
decorative
.
Moon
asks
what
the
aesthetics
of
neoclassical
whiteness
meant
—
and
what
they
cost
.
Empire in the Cupboard
Sugar
bowls
,
teapots
,
and
dinner
services
connected
Staffordshire
to
the
slave
plantations
of
the
Atlantic
.
The
tea
table
,
no
less
than
the
factory
,
was
a
site
of
empire
.
The Abolition Cameo
The
kneeling
-
figure
medallion
is
read
as
both
a
moral
triumph
and
a
moral
problem
—
sentiment
that
could
dignify
opposition
to
slavery
without
disturbing
the
economy
that
rested
on
it
.
5 / 7
