Contents 
Introduction vil 
Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery 
The Truth of Material Culture: 
History or Fiction? 1 
Jules David Prown 
Why We Need Things 20 
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 
Objects as Instruments, Objects as Signs 30 
Jacques Maqguet 
Some Matters of Substance 41 
Robert Friedel 
The Ancestry of Chinese Bronze Vessels 51 
Jessica Rawson