In Broken Chains and Subverted Plans: Ethnicity, Race, and Commodities, Christopher C. Fennell presents two communities that resisted oppressive forces by creating new responses to dominant capitalistic trends.

The book is divided into two parts: “Ethnicity and Commodity Chains in Nineteenth-Century Virginia, and Racism” and “Land and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Illinois”. The book opens with an introduction exploring foodways and racial dynamics in the Midwest, with the second chapter giving an outline of how his research and findings relate to current literature. Fennell sets the scene by describing the ‘consumer revolution’ writing, “In this trajectory, more and more households of modest economic means invested in the purchase of diverse amenities, such as refined ceramic wares for serving tea and meals, refined clothing and fabrics, spices, clocks, and mirrors” (24). This broad change in consumer habits allows Fennell, through the observation of historical material culture, to address the complexities of ethnicity and identity in the Northeastern United States.

Chapters three through seven are a dense and highly academic review of historical and archaeological information about the commodity chains of frontier regions in nineteenth-century Virginia. His central questions include, “Did the establishment of a government-sponsored manufacturing town in this region spur an accelerating development of the surrounding region as a market for manufactured commodities?” (40). Fennell’s methods aim to uncover to what extent social relationships and cultural identity disrupt or promote the consumer revolution. He does this by examining stylistic elements of ceramic ware. Specifically, he relies on two data sets, 1) newspaper advertisements published by local merchants in the area, and 2) “surviving account books, daybooks, and ledgers maintained by local stores” (73). Fennell examines commodity supply chains beginning in Britain, their competitors in North America, as well as the transportation and distribution resources available at the time. He then moves his focus from the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia to the surrounding countryside.

Fennell contends that comparing these two data sets reveals significant trends. “First, customers in more rural locations could purchase imported British ceramic wares from local stores if they wished to do so. Those goods were made available at affordable prices, could be purchased on credit, and were not scarce due to transport problems. Second, those rural customers nonetheless tended to purchase such imported goods at much lower frequencies than did their counterparts in the Tidewater region” (97). His analysis is able to establish that the ‘ceramic revolution’ was not spreading as successfully in the upper Potomac and Shenandoah region as it was in the Tidewater region. To address this discrepancy, Fennell considers ethnic networks in the area by focusing on German log-cabin architectural