Reading historical documents, particularly the kind we are dealing with here, is a little like catching snatches of conversation while moving along a crowded street. We know pretty much what the words signify, but their specific effect eludes us just because words only have meaning in the context of particular relations. We are, of course, interested in the details of individual lives to the degree that they illustrate the logic of social relationships or shed light on the alternative resources and strategies for action in the society under examination. Different forces underlie the patterns we find, but one area crucial for giving structure is the relationships of production, just because much of what people talk about, reflect upon, disagree about, embody, internalize, or escape has to do with labor, the problems and satisfactions of working with various people, and the things that are produced. Although most language is embedded in concrete, material practices and is directed toward appropriating everyday reality, how that appropriation takes place is open to the range of human talent, from ingenuity and creativity, to stupidity and callousness. To say that culture is about concrete existence is not to say that material existence produces particular cultural items or social relationships. It does mean that to parse a particular utterance, we do have to build up a complex understanding of the context in which it was projected.