The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change required more than rising incomes and greater impulses to buy; it involved the creation of new concepts. Buying Happiness explores the ways that key public thinkers represented, conceptualized, and institutionalized new ideas about consumption. Liverant's fresh approach connects the emergence and diffusion of these ideas with changes in political processes and social policy. As the figure of "the consumer" moved from the margins to the centre of social, cultural, and political analysis, the values and concepts associated with consumerism were woven into the Canadian social imagination.

The first comprehensive history of consumerism as an organized social and political movement, this book explores consumer movements, ideologies and organizations in twentieth-century Britain. It explores the history of organizations such as the Co-operative movement and the Consumers' Association and analyzes the role of the National Consumer Council, the Office of Fair Trading, and international consumer organizations as well as the growth of ethical consumerism. A major contribution to the topic of the role of consumption in modern society, it will be essential reading for historians of twentieth-century Britain.

In the twentieth century, Americans thought of the United States as a land of opportunity and equality. To what extent and for whom this was true was, of course, a matter of debate, however especially during the Cold War, many Americans clung to the patriotic conviction that America was the land of the free. At the same time, another national ideal emerged that was far less contentious, that arguably came to subsume the ideals of freedom, opportunity, and equality, and that eventually embodied an unspoken consensus about what constitutes the good society in a postmodern setting. This was the ideal of choice, broadly understood as the proposition that the good society provides individuals with the power to shape the contours of their lives in ways that suit their personal interests, idiosyncrasies, and tastes. By the closing decades of the century, Americans were widely agreed that theirs was-or at least should be-the land of choice. In A Destiny of Choice?, David Blanke and David Steigerwald bring together important scholarship on the tension between two leading interpretations of modern American consumer culture. That modern consumerism reflects the social, cultural, economic, and political changes that accompanied the country's transition from a local, producer economy dominated by limited choices and restricted credit to a national consumer marketplace based on the individual selection of mass-produced, mass-advertised, and mass-distributed goods. This debate is central to the economic difficulties seen in the United States today.

Rescuing the Church . . . examines how people are initiated into a consumer culture during childhood and thus drawn into pursuing a vocation as consumers by means of various quasi-sacramental rites and practices. The upshot of this is that the church today is composed primarily of men and women whose lives are situated more within a consumer culture than within a distinctively Christian one. In order for the church to free itself, the author believes it must reclaim a sacramental identity that is grounded in a narrative tradition and realized in real, local worshipping communities.

Some scholars believe that Jesus' punitive instructions about possessions and material goods amount to little more than antiquated sayings. By contrast, Jesus Consumer combines modern consumer research with the latest writings on historical Jesus to propose a model for contemporary consumer behavior that pays serious regard to Jesus' "consumption teachings." The author argues that Jesus' consumer teachings possess the greatest potential to help us effect positive change in our personal lives and social relationships. We need to interpret and enact his teachings symbolically, not follow them literally.

Growing numbers of consumer product recalls in 2007 and 2008, particularly of toys and other children's products, focused increased attention on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). As globalisation and technological advances expand the range of products on the market, the challenge of overseeing and regulating the thousands of product types becomes all the more complex. This book evaluates the authority and ability of the CPSC to stay informed about new risks associated with consumer products and its ability to identify product hazards, with a focus on voluntary standards and product identification.

What does it mean to live in a consumer society and how does this impact on our behaviour? In this insightful and engaging introduction to the psychology of consumption, Cathrine Jansson-Boyd discusses the various ways that consumer activities pervade our everyday lives, whether we are buying the latest trends to keep up with our peers or altering our physical looks so that we can fit the media's beauty mould. Highlighting why the spread of consumption through society is so important, the book looks at the impact on both children and the environment as well as at ethical considerations. Consumption Matters is the essential starting point for both students and general readers interested in consumer psychology.

That rosy tomato perched on your plate in December is at the end of a great journey-not just over land and sea, but across a vast and varied cultural history. This is the territory charted in Fresh. Opening the door of an ordinary refrigerator, it tells the curious story of the quality stored inside: freshness. We want fresh foods to keep us healthy, and to connect us to nature and community. We also want them convenient, pretty, and cheap. Fresh traces our paradoxical hunger to its roots in the rise of mass consumption, when freshness seemed both proof of and an antidote to progress. Susanne Freidberg begins with refrigeration, a trend as controversial at the turn of the twentieth century as genetically modified crops are today. Consumers blamed cold storage for high prices and rotten eggs but, ultimately, aggressive marketing, advances in technology, and new ideas about health and hygiene overcame this distrust. Freidberg then takes six common foods from the refrigerator to discover what each has to say about our notions of freshness. Fruit, for instance, shows why beauty trumped taste at a surprisingly early date. In the case of fish, we see how the value of a living, quivering catch has ironically hastened the death of species. And of all supermarket staples, why has milk remained the most stubbornly local? Local livelihoods; global trade; the politics of taste, community, and environmental change: all enter into this lively, surprising, yet sobering tale about the nature and cost of our hunger for freshness.

Public alarm about the spate of recent product recalls, particularly of toys and other products used by children, has focused attention on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This book provides an overview of the prior authority of the CPSC to establish consumer product safety standards and to inspect and recall unsafe consumer products. This book also describes the new requirements for certification and testing and the effect of the stay of enforcement of these requirements announced by the CPSC, certain new safety standards established by the CPSIA and related implementation actions and issues. In addition, the authors assessed injury and death data sources used by CPSC, compared CPSC's consumer education efforts with key practices, and interviewed federal officials and groups representing the health and consumer interests of minority populations. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

What factors are contributing to the continuing growth in consumption of goods and services? At what point do the costs associated with consumerism begin to call our way of life into question? How are the problems of resource depletion, waste and pollution, and environmental impact being addressed? What is to be done about the consequences of our all-consuming way of life? Ever-increasing consumption and a relentless pursuit of growth in output are the twin pillars on which the modern economy and contemporary social life rest. But the consumer way of life is globally unsustainable. We can't all live the consumer dream. This comprehensive, lively and informative book will quickly be recognized as a benchmark in the field. It brings together a huge set of resources for thinking about the development of consumer culture, its defining features, and global consequences. Adept in handling a complex range of classical and contemporary theoretical sources, the book draws on an impressive range of comparative material and provides a variety of contemporary examples to inform and enhance understanding of our consuming way of life. Smart writes with verve and feeling and has produced a stimulating book that enlarges our understanding of consumer culture and provides a timely critical analysis of its consequences. Clear, engaging, and original this book will be essential reading for all those interested in and concerned about our global culture of consumption including researchers and students in sociology, politics, cultural studies, economics, and social geography.

Venda mas y mejor conociendo a su cliente.
La ciencia es muy clara: los hombres y las mujeres usan diferentes partes de su cerebro y por lo tanto se comportan de manera distinta en muchisimas situaciones, incluyendo la manera en que vamos de compras, compramos y consumimos productos y servicios. Como profesional de ventas, publicidad o mercadeo, entender estas diferencias es la clave de nuestro exito. Para aumentar las ventas, usted debe comprender lo que de manera singular impulsa a sus clientes, masculinos o femeninos, y maximizar sus opciones para comunicarse con ellos. Ya sea que venda productos tangibles como autos y casas o productos intangibles como servicios financieros o soluciones de negocios, "De compras con el y ella" le ayudara a entender las inherentes percepciones, motivaciones y emociones especificas de los cromosomas X e Y. Estas perspectivas son la manera mas poderosa para aumentar los ingresos.

The only book to connect the everyday world of the 20-something undergraduate consumer with sound sociological analysis of the world of consumption Enchanting a Disenchanted World, Third Edition examines Disney, malls, cruise lines, Las Vegas, the world wide web, Planet Hollywood, credit cards, and all the other ways we now consume. Thoroughly updated to reflect the recent economic recession and the impact of the internet, bestselling author George Ritzer continues to explore this book's central thesis: that our society has undergone fundamental change because of the way and the level at which we consume. This Third Edition demonstrates how we have created new "cathedrals" of consumption (places that enchant us so as to entice us to stay longer and consume more) while continuing to take capitalism to a new level. These places of consumption, whether in our homes, the mall, or cyberspace, are in a constant state of "enchanting the disenchanted," luring us through new spectacles because their rational qualities are both necessary and deadening at the same time. New and Hallmark Features Offers a unique analysis of the world of consumption, especially the settings in which consumption takes place Discusses the recent global economic recession throughout Offers rich details on consuming in such places as Las Vegas, Disney World, on cruise ships, in Wal-Mart, at McDonald's, and, new to this edition, on the Web Includes a wide range of theoretical perspectives-Marxian, Weberian, critical theory, postmodern theory-as well as a number of concepts such as hyperconsumption, implosion, simulation, and time and space to show students how sociological theory can be applied to everyday phenomena Intended Audience Enchanting in a Disenchanted World, Third Edition brings life to a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, including Introductory Sociology, Social Problems, Sociological Theory, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Culture, and the Sociology of Consumption. Contributor to the SAGE Teaching Innovations and Professional Development Award

The Third Edition of McDonaldization: The Reader includes a wide array of sources, from journal articles, to essays from edited books, to newspaper and magazine articles. George Ritzer, best-selling author of McDonaldization of Society, has updated this popular anthology to build upon and go beyond the thesis of McDonaldization. Classic articles from the First and Second Editions remain in this volume and are supplemented by a significant number of new pieces which bring the discussion about McDonaldization up to date.

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"Liberalization's Children" explores how youth and gender have become crucial sites for a contested cultural politics of globalization in India. Popular discourses draw a contrast between "midnight's children," who were rooted in post-independence Nehruvian developmentalism, and "liberalization's children," who are global in outlook and unapologetically consumerist. Moral panics about beauty pageants and the celebration of St. Valentine's Day reflect ambivalence about the impact of an expanding commodity culture, especially on young women. By simply highlighting the triumph of consumerism, such discourses obscure more than they reveal. Through a careful analysis of "consumer citizenship," Ritty A. Lukose argues that the breakdown of the Nehruvian vision connects with ongoing struggles over the meanings of public life and the cultural politics of belonging. Those struggles play out in the ascendancy of Hindu nationalism; reconfigurations of youthful, middle-class femininity; attempts by the middle class to alter understandings of citizenship; and assertions of new forms of masculinity by members of lower castes.

Moving beyond elite figurations of globalizing Indian youth, Lukose draws on ethnographic research to examine how non-elite college students in the southern state of Kerala mediate region, nation, and globe. Kerala sits at the crossroads of development and globalization. Held up as a model of left-inspired development, it has also been transformed through an extensive and largely non-elite transnational circulation of labor, money, and commodities to the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Focusing on fashion, romance, student politics, and education, Lukose carefully tracks how gender, caste, and class, as well as colonial and postcolonial legacies of culture and power, affect how students navigate their roles as citizens and consumers. She explores how mass-mediation and an expanding commodity culture have differentially incorporated young people into the structures and aspirational logics of globalization.

Praise for Sharon Beder's previous book Global Spin: 'Sharon Beder has taken the taboo subjects of propaganda and censorship in free societies and exposed their insidious threat.' John Pilger 'Beder's analysis is comprehensive, steely and clinical. She lifts the lid on an elaborate tapestry of lies, deceit, intimidation and destruction.' Harold Pinter This book investigates the way that corporations are strategically shaping children to be under-aged hyperconsumers as well as the submissive employees and uncritical citizens of the future. Sharon Beder shows how marketers and advertisers are targeting ever younger children in a relentless campaign, transforming children's play into a commercial opportunity and taking advantage of childish anxieties. Beder investigates the corporate relations and ideals that infiltrate every aspect of our lives. She presents an alarming picture of how a child's social development -- through education, health care and nutrition -- has become an ordered conveyor belt of consumerist conditioning. Focusing on education in particular, Beder explains how businesses are taking control of more and more aspects of schooling, not only for profit but to erode state schooling and promote business values. Similarly, she shows how 'difficult' children are taught from an early age that pharmaceuticals can be used to discipline them or to make them 'happy'.

This book will shock you. Consumer Kids shows how, more than ever before, and perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, our children are being tracked and targeted by big business, which sells them back their dreams, packages their childhood and exploits their vulnerabilities. It looks at why children torture their Barbies, how boys feel about David Beckham, why mums are cooler than dads, why children in the toughest families make the most ardent consumers and why, above all, too much marketing makes you unhappy. This hard-hitting expose is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the deeper implications of the runaway commercial world we live in.

Dana Thomas's Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre goes deep inside the workings of today's world of profit margins and market share to discover the real meaning of 'luxury'. Fashion may be fabulous, but what's the true price of luxury? From the importance of fashion owners, to red carpet stars and the seasonal 'must-have' handbags, Dana Thomas shows how far illustrious houses have moved from their roots. Thomas witnesses how these 'luxury' handbags are no longer one in a million, discovers why luxury brand clothing doesn't last as long, and finds out just who is making your perfume. From terrifying raids on the Chinese sweat shops to the daunting chic of Paris workshops, from the handcrafting and economics of early-twentieth century designers to the violent truth behind the 'harmless' fakes, Deluxe goes deep into the world of extravagance, and asks: where can true luxury go now? 'Definitive' Daily Telegraph 'Thomas's message is relevant to shoppers of every stripe' The New York Times 'Thomas explores what luxury meant before the word was both inflated and devalued' Guardian 'Great aversion therapy ... we suspect we're being fleeced, but we don't know with what cynical dedication' The Times Dana Thomas is now European Editor for Portfolio following twelve years as the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris. She has written about style for the New York Times Magazine since 1994, and has contributed to various publications including the New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and the Financial Times.

This collection offers a global perspective on the changing character of cities and the increasing importance that consumer culture plays in defining their symbolic economies. Increasingly, forms of spectacle have come to shape how cities are imagined and to influence their character and the practices through which we know them - from advertising and the selling of real estate, to youth cultural consumption practices and forms of entrepreneurship, to the regeneration of urban areas under the guise of the heritage industry and the development of a WiFi landscape. Using examples of cities such as New York, Sydney, Atlantic City, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Douala, Liverpool, San Juan, Berlin and Harbin this book illustrates how image and practice have become entangled in the performance of the symbolic economy. It also argues that it is not just how the urban present is being shaped in this way that is significant to the development of cities but also that a prominent feature of their development has been the spectacular imagining of the past as heritage and through regeneration. Yet the ghosts that this conjures up in practice offer us a possible form of political unsettlement and alternative ways of viewing cities that is only just beginning to be explored. Through this important collection by some of the leading analysts of consumption, cities and space Consuming the Entrepreneurial City offers a cutting edge analysis of the ways in which cities are developing and the implications this has for their future. It is essential reading for students of Urban Studies, Geography, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Heritage Studies and Anthropology.

"One problem with the food system is that price is the bottom line rather than having the bottom line be land stewardship, an appreciation for the environmental and social value of small-scale family farms, or for organically grown produce." --Interview with farmer in Skagit County, Washington

For much of the later twentieth century, food has been abundant and convenient for most residents of advanced industrial societies. The luxury of taking the safety and dependability of food for granted pushed it to the back burner in the consciousness of many. Increasingly, however, this once taken-for-granted food system is coming under question on issues such as the humane treatment of animals, genetically engineered foods, and social and environmental justice. Many consumers are no longer content with buying into the mainstream, commodity-driven food market on which they once depended. Resistance has emerged in diverse forms, from protests at the opening of McDonald's restaurants worldwide to ever-greater interest in alternatives, such as CSAs (community-supported agriculture), fair trade, and organic foods. The food system is increasingly becoming an arena of struggle that reflects larger changes in societal values and norms, as expectations are moving beyond the desire for affordable, convenient foods to a need for healthy and environmentally sound alternatives. In this book, leading scholars and scholar-activists provide case studies that illuminate the complexities and contradictions that surround the emergence of a "new day" in agriculture.

The essays found in The Fight Over Food analyze and evaluate both the theoretical and historical contexts of the agrifood system and the ways in which trends of individual action and collective activity have led to an "accumulation of resistance" that greatly affects the mainstream market of food production. The overarching theme that integrates the case studies is the idea of human agency and the ways in which people purposefully and creatively generate new forms of action or resistance to facilitate social changes within the structure of predominant cultural norms. Together these studies examine whether these combined efforts will have the strength to create significant and enduring transformations in the food system.

This book deals with the entertainment industries and their engagement in widespread marketing of violent movies, music, and electronic games to children that is inconsistent with the cautionary messages of their own parental advisories and that undermines parents' attempts to make informed decisions about their children's exposure to violent content.

You can shop anywhere you like -- as long as it's Tesco The inexorable rise of supermarkets is big news but have we really taken on board what this means for our daily lives, and those of our children? In this searing analysis Andrew Simms, director of the acclaimed think-and-do-tank the New Economics Foundation and the person responsible for introducing 'Clone Towns' into our vernacular, tackles a subject none of us can afford to ignore. The book shows how the supermarkets -- and Tesco in particular -- have brought: " Banality -- homogenized high streets full of clone stores " Ghost towns -- superstores have drained the life from our town centres and communities " A Supermarket State -- this new commercial nanny state that knows more about you than you think " Profits from poverty -- shelves full of global plunder, produced for a pittance " Global food domination -- as the superstores expand overseas But there's change afoot, with evidence of the tide turning and consumer campaigns gaining ground. Simms ends with suggestions for change and coporate reformation to safeguard our communities and environment -- all over the world. This book has been written and published independently from the Tescopoly Alliance and is not endorsed by them.

The Globalization of Nothing is back in a revised and completely updated edition, with an even greater emphasis on the processes of globalization and how they relate to McDonaldization. As before, this book is structured around four sets of concepts addressing the issues of: "places/non-places," "things/non-things," "people/non-people," and "services/non-services." By drawing upon salient examples from everyday life, George Ritzer invites the reader to examine the nuances of these concepts in conjunction with the paradoxes within the process of the globalization of nothing. Critical questions are raised throughout, and the reader is compelled not only to seek answers to these questions, but also to critically evaluate the questions as well as their answers. New to This Edition Features a greater emphasis on the main topic of globalization: A new first chapter offers an introductory overview of globalization and globalization theory, outlining the unique ways in which these topics are addressed throughout the text. Offers a new way to conceptualize and theorize about globalization: This edition delves into two subprocesses of globalization-"glocalization" and "grobalization." Provides a new way to think about consumer culture and globalization: New material is presented on consumer culture and its globalization as well as on the role of branding. Uses a nontechnical and accessible style with many global examples: The examples in this book are drawn from everyday life and a global consumer culture that are readily recognizable to students. Shorter and more concise in response to reviewer feedback. Intended Audience This text can be used in a variety of courses focusing on the principles of sociology, social change, social theory, globalization, consumerism, and the global economy in sociology departments as well as in related courses in departments of political science or economics. Contributor to the SAGE Teaching Innovations and Professional Development Award

In 1812, a series of revolts known collectively as the Aponte Rebellion erupted across the island of Cuba, comprising one of the largest and most important slave insurrections in Caribbean history. Matt Childs provides the first in-depth analysis of the rebellion, situating it in local, colonial, imperial, and Atlantic World contexts. Childs explains how slaves and free people of color responded to the nineteenth-century ""sugar boom"" in the Spanish colony by planning a rebellion against racial slavery and plantation agriculture. Striking alliances among free people of color and slaves, blacks and mulattoes, Africans and Creoles, and rural and urban populations, rebels were prompted to act by a widespread belief in rumors promising that emancipation was near. Taking further inspiration from the 1791 Haitian Revolution, rebels sought to destroy slavery in Cuba and perhaps even end Spanish rule. By comparing his findings to studies of slave insurrections in Brazil, Haiti, the British Caribbean, and the United States, Childs places the rebellion within the wider story of Atlantic World revolution and political change. The book also features a biographical table, constructed by Childs, of the more than 350 people investigated for their involvement in the rebellion, 34 of whom were executed.

This superb historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's "Regional Economies," takes up the difficult question of how to understand the growing alienation ordinary working people feel in the face of globalization. Combining rich oral histories with a sophisticated and nuanced structural understanding of changing political economies, the authors examine the growing divide between government and its citizens in a region that has in the last four decades been transformed from a primarily agricultural economy to a primarily industrial one. Offering a new form of ethnography appropriate for the study of suprastate polities and a globalized economy, Immediate Struggles contributes to our understanding of one region as well as the way we think about changing class relations, modes of production, and cultural practices in a newly emerging Europe. The authors also consider how phenomena such as the "informal economy" and "black market" are not marginal to the normal operation of state and economic institutions but are intertwined with both.

Americans search for identity through a paradoxical pair of passions: spirituality and consumerism. On the one hand, we participate in religion or practice spirituality and on the other hand we are keen consumers. But, as Tom Beaudoin's Consuming Faith makes clear, if we truly seek to put our spirituality into practice, we must integrate who we are with what we buy. How are we linked to the rest of the world through our purchases? What does faith have to do with what we buy? With a new updated preface by the author, this paperback edition invites us to think about how our purchases affect who we are as individuals and as members of a global community.