Organized by Centre for Urban History at the Belgium's U. of Antwerp, a November 2003 conference brought together urban historians, social historians, and art historians in order to examine the comparative history of retail consumerism in Europe in the medieval and early modern eras. According to the editors (of the U. of Antwerp and the UK's U. of Northampton), the major contributions of the conference consisted of its comparative attention to long-term trends and changes and the willingness of participants to challenge orthodoxies of earlier retail historiography. Here, 17 papers from the conference discuss issues of exchange, shopping behavior, social interactions, gender, and physical space. Geographic focus is largely centered on England, Italy, and the Netherlands. Distributed in the US by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)