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In Mahogany Jennifer L. Anderson gives a look at the cultural and political effects the trade in wood created in the context of the Anglo-Atlantic world. The trade in mahogany from its felling in the Caribbean by African slaves to its transformation into furniture by New England craftsmen fueled the cultural transformations occurring in Britain and America. The furniture craze that began among English aristocrats and spread among the 'middling sorts' in North America certainly had an impact upon the cultural make-up of these regions. Anderson gives a lot of agency to the material of mahogany itself because of its, "enduring cultural significances were (and are) predicated on its physical and aesthetic properties that made it an extraordinarily durable, versatile, and attractive wood." (9) This places the work in the position of promoting the importance of sensory experience in a commodities social life. After all you can build a cabinet out of any wood, but it won't have the look of mahogany. I think it is fascinating how demand for a certain 'type' of something can compel interactions on the scope that Anderson shows us and spur cultural change that crosses generations.