Stimulated by the visibility and power of the consumer economy in contemporary societies, scholars have redoubled their interest in investigating its past—to locate its beginnings, trace its growth, and assess its historical effects. The methodologies deployed to study the history of consumption are decidedly eclectic. Social history is still the dominant approach, but disciplinary influences include economics, marketing research, anthropology, and sociology to cultural and cinema studies and art and design history. As well as tracing the major approaches and concepts in studying the history of consumption, the article examines the periodization of mass consumption, consumption regimes outside the West, and the shared concerns of the new agendas of research in the field.