This book is not simply the best book on the remarkable phenomenon of today's ethical consumer. It is a gift of advice and insight, from the people that know best, to the cause of tomorrow. Many of the writers deserve the plaudits of being pioneers of a new consumer movement. These are the issues of our time' - "Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of the UK's National Consumer Council (NCe

"

Who are ethical consumers and why are they on the rise? Leading the way towards answering this question, The Ethical Consumer is an indispensable introduction to the subject. Exploring areas like boycotts and fair trade projects, it gathers together the diverse experiences of scholars, campaigners and business practitioners from the international community.

The chapters in this book explore:

- ethical consumer behaviours, motivation and narratives

- the social, political and theoretical contexts in which ethical consumers operate

- the responsibilities of businesses and the effectiveness of ethical consumer actions

Contributions are informed by a broad range of research methods, from case studies, focus groups to surveys and interviews.

The text is of interest to business related graduates, undergraduates and their tutors on courses relating to consumption. It will also be relevant to academics in other disciplines, as well as to politicians, producers, practitioners, campaigners and not least consumers.

Are Americans obsessed with shopping? Shop 'til You Drop is a lively look at our consumer culture and its role in our everyday lives and society. Is the United States different from other first-world nations in the amount of time we spend shopping or in our attitudes toward consumption? Are we one unified consumer culture or are several cultures operating and battling against one another? Arthur Asa Berger uncovers the answers to these and other questions, considering the sacred roots of consumer culture, the demographics of consumption, theories about competing cultures, and the semiotics of shopping. Accessibly written and entertaining, Shop 'til You Drop is ideal for courses in cultural studies, advertising, and American studies, as well as for anyone curious about our nation's drive to consume.

Estirar el dinero parece ser lo que todos desean. Como vivimos en una sociedad donde impera el consumerismo, se hace dificil comprar lo que se necesita no por emociones ni deseos. En su libro "?Como compro inteligentemente?, " Andres Panasiuk presenta siete principios faciles de aplicar al comprar, asi como una guia precisa para hacer mayores inversiones.

Over the past few generations, expectations of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have altered radically, but these dramatic changes have largely gone unnoticed. This intriguing book brings together the sociology of consumption and technology to investigate the evolution of these changes, as well the social meaning of the practices themselves.Homes, offices, domestic appliances and clothes play a crucial role in our lives, but not many of us question exactly how and why we perform so many daily rituals associated with them. Showers, heating, air-conditioning and clothes washing are simply accepted as part of our normal, everyday lives, but clearly this was not always the case. When did the 'daily shower' become de rigueur? What effect has air conditioning had on the siesta - at one time an integral part of Mediterranean life and culture? This book interrogates the meaning and supposed 'normality' of these practices and draws disturbing conclusions. There is clear evidence supporting the view that routine consumption is controlled by conceptions of normality and profoundly shaped by cultural and economic forces. Shove maintains that habits are not just changing, but are changing in ways that imply escalating and standardizing patterns of consumption. This shrewd and engrossing analysis shows just how far the social meanings and practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have eluded us.

Consumption as a field of cultural studies overlaps with theories of postmodernism, the social construction of self, commodification in late capitalism, and the role of mass media in daily life. New forms of consumption such as those facilitated by cyberspace, themed environments, the commodification of sex, and the increasing role of leisure in society all play new and interesting roles in daily life that combine consumerism with the most contemporary social forms. This collection of essays examines the recent ways in which consumerism has been approached by cultural studies with special emphasis given to these and other newly emerging topics. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a theoretical overview of consumption studies dealing with classical and more contemporary approaches in light of the debate between advocates and critics of postmodernism. In this section there are papers on McDonaldization, tourism and cultural studies, and the Theory of Shopping. The second part emphasizes empirical studies of the commodification process. Papers address the transformation of women s bodies and the mass commodification of milk, the creation of the toddler as a subject and the commodification of childhood, the commodification of sports, and the commodification of rock music. The third section of the book explores new forms of consumption on a more detailed and concentrated level. Papers in this section include the rise of sex tourism as a global industry, the commodification of the sacred, and the emergence of new consumer spaces in the city. An introduction by the editor delineates the advantages of his approach to new forms of consumption based squarely in the emerging issues of cultural studies, debates transcending postmodernism, and the society of the spectacle.

The unqualified victory of consumerism in America was not a foregone conclusion. The United States has traditionally been the home of the most aggressive and often thoughtful criticism of consumption, including Puritanism, Prohibition, the simplicity movement, the '60s hippies, and the consumer rights movement. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, not only has American consumerism triumphed, there isn't even an "ism" left to challenge it. "An All-Consuming Century" is a rich history of how market goods came to dominate American life over that remarkable hundred years between 1900 and 2000 and why for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism.

By 1930 a distinct consumer society had emerged in the United States in which the taste, speed, control, and comfort of goods offered new meanings of freedom, thus laying the groundwork for a full-scale ideology of consumer's democracy after World War II. From the introduction of Henry Ford's Model T ("so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one") and the innovations in selling that arrived with the department store (window displays, self service, the installment plan) to the development of new arenas for spending (amusement parks, penny arcades, baseball parks, and dance halls), Americans embraced the new culture of commercialism -- with reservations. However, Gary Cross shows that even the Depression, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the inflation of the 1970s made Americans more materialistic, opening new channels of desire and offering opportunities for more innovative and aggressive marketing. The conservative upsurge of the 1980s and '90s indulged in its own brand of self-aggrandizement by promoting unrestricted markets. The consumerism of today, thriving and largely unchecked, no longer brings families and communities together; instead, it increasingly divides and isolates Americans.

Consumer culture has provided affluent societies with peaceful alternatives to tribalism and class war, Cross writes, and it has fueled extraordinary economic growth. The challenge for the future is to find ways to revive the still valid portion of the culture of constraint and control the overpowering success of the all-consuming twentieth century.

After decades of egalitarian, restricted consumption, the residents of China's cities are today surrounded by material comforts and awash in a level of commercial hype that was totally unimaginable just ten years ago. In this first in-depth treatment of the consumer revolution in China, fourteen leading scholars of Chinese culture and society explore the interpersonal consequences of rapid commercialization.

In the early 1980s Beijing's communist leadership advocated decollectivization, foreign trade, and private entrepreneurship to jump-start a stagnant economy. It explicitly rejected any notion that economic reforms would lead to political change, but by the early 1990s its program had not only produced double-digit growth but also enabled ordinary citizens to nurture dreams and social networks that challenged official monopolies of power. Using participant observation, the authors in this book describe and analyze a wide range of these changing consumer practices, including luxury housing, white wedding gowns, greeting cards, McDonald's, discos, premium cigarettes, and bowling.

Capitalism has brought urban Chinese both a higher material standard of living and new freedoms to create a private life beyond the control of the state. This important book offers rare insights into the world's largest marketplace.

Many of women's everyday experiences and pleasures are tied up inextricably with consumption. In consumer-culture research, it tends to be the activities and interests of women which take center stage. This collection provides a wide range of different perspectives on women as consumers, focusing on popular culture, including examinations of popular media and their targeting of female audiences.

Apart from a grounding in feminism the collection does not present a single view, theoretically; methodologically, or politically. Its contributors work across a wide range of disciplines, including cultural and media studies, design history, and sociolinguistics. What they all have in common is the aim of understanding women's experiences and struggles in relation to consumer culture in the 20th century.

Is Marxism a reflection of the conceptual system it fights against, rather than a truly comprehensive approach to human history? Drawing on recent work in anthropology, history, and philosophy, Donald Donham confronts this problem in analyzing a radically different social order: the former Maale kingdom of southern Ethiopia.
"Every once in a while there appears a book that . . . opens up new ways of inquiring into the ways of the world. Donald Donham has written such a book. The style is quiet and judicious, but the effect is stunning. . . . In putting inherited partisan approaches to the test of explaining the realities of Maale society and culture, Donham enriches anthropology and imparts new vigor to the analytical Marxian traditions. "History, Power, Ideology" embodies a major accomplishment."--From the Foreword

This book provides an introduction to the historical and theoretical foundations of consumerism. It then moves on to examine the experience of consumption in the areas of space and place, technology, fashion, `popular' music and sport. Throughout, the author brings a critical perspective to bear upon the subject, thus providing a reliable and stimulating guide to a complex and many-sided field.

The second edition of this successful textbook continues to offer a sophisticated treatment of consumer psychology which is directly related to the concerns of marketing management, especially in terms of market segmentation, product positioning and new product development. It has an international approach that is reflected in language, examples, and scope and it also has a comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of literature and recent research. The new edition takes into account past reviewers' and users' comments by reducing the amount of material on adaptive/innovative cognitive style and replaces this with a wider range of material on the theme of personality and new product phrase. This edition also includes end-of-chapter questions and suggested further reading.

Scholars in diverse fields now agree on the importance of investigating the impact of consumption practices on the global environment, quality of life, and international justice. In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines-philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology-examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world. Specifically, the essays evaluate the impact of consumption practices on our own lives, our institutions, other people, and the environment. The contributors give explicit attention to the principles relevant for a consumption ethic, as well as to the policies and practices that such an ethic permits or requires. These engaging, jargon-free essays frame the problem of consumption in a variety of ways, challenging readers to see the issue from new perspectives. For scholars and students from across the disciplines, as well as for environmental and consumer activists, this volume will serve as the touchstone for discussions of consumption and global stewardship.

This lucid introduction to the sociology of consumerism examines the relationship between production and consumption in late capitalist societies. The historical and theoretical discussion provides the student with the tools to examine key themes in the sociology of consumption. After a detailed historical overview of the advent of consumer society, Peter Corrigan examines theoretical accounts of consumption and consumer practice, including: Veblen and conspicuous consumption; Mary Douglas on the world of goods; Jean Baudrillard on the system of objects; and Pierre Bourdieu on cultural capital. This historical and theoretical discussion provides the student with the tools to examine key themes in the sociology of consumption.

Creative marketers today visualize the importance that computer networks, television, radio, and cable will bring to the marketing world of the 21st century. While many electronic marketing applications--such as broadcast fax, telemarketing, and EDI--are well developed and understood in the context of business-to-business marketing, there is a gap in knowledge regarding the application of electronic marketing to consumers. Electronic Marketing and the Consumer fills that gap. Exceptionally comprehensive and current, this book includes a wide range of electronic marketing techniques, including direct response radio and television, and computers and the Internet. It also covers real-world cases and practical insights from the experiences of major consumer marketers such as Mary Kay Cosmetics and Dell Computer as well as expert advice on the future of electronic marketing and its likely impact on consumer behavior and society. Electronic Marketing and the Consumer is an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and professionals in the fields of marketing, advertising, and communication technology.

Smart Patients Don't Just Know About Health and illness -- they've got a handle on the health-care system and know how to make it work for them. In Patient Power , two health professionals give you the low-down on who is involved, what they do and what they shouldn't do, and what happens.

Patricia and Arthur Parsons break down the health-care system into three areas: the people, the process, and the results. They introduce you to a whole cast of characters: doctors, nurses, technical people, allied health professionals, and some of the people who deliver alternative approaches to health-care. They explain what each of these characters does and the language they use. They talk about common diagnostic tests, how drugs are prescribed, high tech medical equipment, and what happens in the operating room after you go to sleep. In 'The Results, ' they give you an insider's view on issues such as medical ethics, overuse of the system, social problems that have been made into medical problems, and how to have a 'smart' death.

Entertaining, informative, and easy to read, Patient Power will give you power over what happens to you in the health-care system.

Patient Power is an entertaining, informative, and easy-to-read guide to the health-care system. Two health professionals explain the people, the processes, and the results of the system, giving you the power to make the system work to your benefit.

"Scholarly and extensively footnoted, the book is meant to be used as a sourcebook for anthropological research. . . . The book's primary audience should be marketing and anthropology researchers, and graduate students, faculty, and researchers." --P. G. Kishel in Choice "As a business person responsible for the development of advertising strategies and advertising campaigns, I was impressed with the contributors' willingness and desire to apply anthropological principles to real world problems. John Sherry Jr.'s comment sums it up nicely, 'Anthropology is a practical discipline, anchoring the blue sky thinking it encourages firmly to the local ground it inhabits.' We need to encourage blue sky thinking so we don't repeatedly get the same answers to our inquiries. Anthropologists can help us with these issues. . . "This book gives me enormous hope that applied anthropology will help restore the tremendous value that can be gained through qualitative research techniques. Today in marketing and advertising, focus groups are grossly overused, misused, and underanalyzed. I was encouraged and excited about the authors' discussions of good ethnographies and focus groups that, for example, instead of simply asking respondents whether or not EMF causes cancer, a far more creative and insightful exercise was performed with consumers, and then was intensely analyzed by anthropologists. All too often today, qualitative research is carelessly and quickly administered and the analysis consists of a 30-minute debriefing at the end of the last focus group. . . "In the last few years, the need for cross-cultural consumer understanding has grown rapidly. This phenomenon makes it imperative that not only must we fully understand the meanings of brands and products to our domestic consumers, but we must know which meanings are 'transportable' to consumers in other cultures. John Sherry Jr.'s book suggests that anthropologists could and should have a major role in cross-cultural consumer understanding." --Patricia A. Cafferata, President and Chief Executive Officer, Young & Rubicam Chicago "John Sherry Jr. and his contributors bring 'marketplace anthropology' out of the shadows and into the dazzling piazza of contemporary social thought. Wide-ranging, lively, and often witty, the sourcebook raises many intriguing questions about the trajectory of anthropology and social science in general for the 21st century. Though readers might not always agree with the approaches used, these chapters are pointed reminders of vast fields of anthropological neglect on subjects of huge importance for today's world, yet inspirations for the work reach back to the foundations of modern anthropology, from Malinowski to W. Lloyd Warner. . . "This book makes a convincing case for the role of marketplace anthropology in basic research on humankind. While many anthropologists might approach this collection with some apprehensiveness, the editor does not shrink from the ethical issues of business anthropology. Applied anthropologists in many fields can benefit from the insights and ideas presented here. This book goes a long way toward replacing the pop-anthropology so rampant in corporate circles these days with substantive anthropological materials and sets of ideas on advertising, organizational behavior, buying and selling, profit-making, consumer relations, and much more." --J. Anthony Paredes, Florida State University "Anyone concerned with understanding the consumer will find John F. Sherry Jr.'s new book invaluable. In the past decade, the most important contributions to the meaning of products, brands, and advertising in consumers' lives have come from anthropology. Sherry and the contributors to this volume have been in the forefront of that movement. The chapters in this volume, whether on shampoo, electric utilities, or life histories of brand behavior, capture the excitement and illumination of looking at marketing and advertising through the lens of anthropology." --Myra Stark, Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising "This book is long overdue; anthropologists as consumer researchers have been a powerful underground force for the past 15 years of innovative marketing. Major companies, as well as government and private institutions, have looked to anthropologists to help when other research has failed. John Sherry Jr. has collected outstanding anthropological practitioners in this volume, and they have written cutting-edge chapters on product symbolism, consumer culture, advertising efficacy, and international marketing. The power of this collection lies in the fresh insights to each of these themes and the ability to reframe old problems to reperceive what it means to live the life of a consumer as we approach the next century." --Steve Barnett, Managing Director, Global Business Network Containing original articles and empirical substance, Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior responds to a growing demand for scholarship more tuned to the empirical and practical realities of consumer culture. Written by leading anthropologists who specialize in marketing and consumer research, it is intended as a sourcebook for readers interested in consumption and its managerial consequences. The topics and their treatments run a gamut of concerns including elements of the marketing mix (such as goods and services), advertising and promotion, relationship management, managerial intervention and development, class-and-gender-linked consumer behaviors, and the production of consumption. Anthropological perspectives and methods employed by the authors range from materialistic to semiotic and both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed. Contributors range across time, space, and topics in pursuit of understanding. The result is a multifaceted perspective of marketing and consumer behavior. Also, the remarks of eminent senior Fellows of the Association for Consumer Research, who have drawn upon anthropology to make their own seminal contributions to a number of disciplines, punctuate this exceptional volume. A remarkable and extraordinary text, Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior is ideal for scholars, students and professionals in marketing, cultural studies, gender studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and communication.

"Scholarly and extensively footnoted, the book is meant to be used as a sourcebook for anthropological research. . . . The book's primary audience should be marketing and anthropology researchers, and graduate students, faculty, and researchers." --P. G. Kishel in Choice "As a business person responsible for the development of advertising strategies and advertising campaigns, I was impressed with the contributors' willingness and desire to apply anthropological principles to real world problems. John Sherry Jr.'s comment sums it up nicely, 'Anthropology is a practical discipline, anchoring the blue sky thinking it encourages firmly to the local ground it inhabits.' We need to encourage blue sky thinking so we don't repeatedly get the same answers to our inquiries. Anthropologists can help us with these issues. . . "This book gives me enormous hope that applied anthropology will help restore the tremendous value that can be gained through qualitative research techniques. Today in marketing and advertising, focus groups are grossly overused, misused, and underanalyzed. I was encouraged and excited about the authors' discussions of good ethnographies and focus groups that, for example, instead of simply asking respondents whether or not EMF causes cancer, a far more creative and insightful exercise was performed with consumers, and then was intensely analyzed by anthropologists. All too often today, qualitative research is carelessly and quickly administered and the analysis consists of a 30-minute debriefing at the end of the last focus group. . . "In the last few years, the need for cross-cultural consumer understanding has grown rapidly. This phenomenon makes it imperative that not only must we fully understand the meanings of brands and products to our domestic consumers, but we must know which meanings are 'transportable' to consumers in other cultures. John Sherry Jr.'s book suggests that anthropologists could and should have a major role in cross-cultural consumer understanding." --Patricia A. Cafferata, President and Chief Executive Officer, Young & Rubicam Chicago "John Sherry Jr. and his contributors bring 'marketplace anthropology' out of the shadows and into the dazzling piazza of contemporary social thought. Wide-ranging, lively, and often witty, the sourcebook raises many intriguing questions about the trajectory of anthropology and social science in general for the 21st century. Though readers might not always agree with the approaches used, these chapters are pointed reminders of vast fields of anthropological neglect on subjects of huge importance for today's world, yet inspirations for the work reach back to the foundations of modern anthropology, from Malinowski to W. Lloyd Warner. . . "This book makes a convincing case for the role of marketplace anthropology in basic research on humankind. While many anthropologists might approach this collection with some apprehensiveness, the editor does not shrink from the ethical issues of business anthropology. Applied anthropologists in many fields can benefit from the insights and ideas presented here. This book goes a long way toward replacing the pop-anthropology so rampant in corporate circles these days with substantive anthropological materials and sets of ideas on advertising, organizational behavior, buying and selling, profit-making, consumer relations, and much more." --J. Anthony Paredes, Florida State University "Anyone concerned with understanding the consumer will find John F. Sherry Jr.'s new book invaluable. In the past decade, the most important contributions to the meaning of products, brands, and advertising in consumers' lives have come from anthropology. Sherry and the contributors to this volume have been in the forefront of that movement. The chapters in this volume, whether on shampoo, electric utilities, or life histories of brand behavior, capture the excitement and illumination of looking at marketing and advertising through the lens of anthropology." --Myra Stark, Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising "This book is long overdue; anthropologists as consumer researchers have been a powerful underground force for the past 15 years of innovative marketing. Major companies, as well as government and private institutions, have looked to anthropologists to help when other research has failed. John Sherry Jr. has collected outstanding anthropological practitioners in this volume, and they have written cutting-edge chapters on product symbolism, consumer culture, advertising efficacy, and international marketing. The power of this collection lies in the fresh insights to each of these themes and the ability to reframe old problems to reperceive what it means to live the life of a consumer as we approach the next century." --Steve Barnett, Managing Director, Global Business Network Containing original articles and empirical substance, Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior responds to a growing demand for scholarship more tuned to the empirical and practical realities of consumer culture. Written by leading anthropologists who specialize in marketing and consumer research, it is intended as a sourcebook for readers interested in consumption and its managerial consequences. The topics and their treatments run a gamut of concerns including elements of the marketing mix (such as goods and services), advertising and promotion, relationship management, managerial intervention and development, class-and-gender-linked consumer behaviors, and the production of consumption. Anthropological perspectives and methods employed by the authors range from materialistic to semiotic and both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed. Contributors range across time, space, and topics in pursuit of understanding. The result is a multifaceted perspective of marketing and consumer behavior. Also, the remarks of eminent senior Fellows of the Association for Consumer Research, who have drawn upon anthropology to make their own seminal contributions to a number of disciplines, punctuate this exceptional volume. A remarkable and extraordinary text, Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior is ideal for scholars, students and professionals in marketing, cultural studies, gender studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and communication.

Como alcanzar lo que las personas mas desean en la vida, paz mental, buenas relaciones familiares y, sobre todo, esperanza.

Published in cooperation with the Association for Consumer Research "A clearly written and useful work. Their book lays out organizing principles that delineate the underlying epistemologies current in consumer research, providing insightful exposure to philosophical positions and associated research methods for both the experienced researcher and the novice. . . . The book provides insight into current epistemologies and associated methods and is an important resource for all consumer behavior researchers. It should be taken as a starting point for delving into and understanding consumer research, a springboard that directs the researcher to relevant theorists and provides a framework for assessing research perspectives." --Journal of Marketing Research The methodological choices now confronting consumer researchers are daunting. For many years, researchers have wrestled with issues related to the nature of knowledge in the study of consumption phenomena. In Postmodern Consumer Research, Elizabeth C. Hirschman and Morris B. Holbrook examine philosophies and methods of consumer research along an objectivist-subjectivist continuum. First, they present philosophical concepts regarding the origin and content of knowledge relevant to consumer-behavior phenomena. Then, they consider a set of research methods aimed at implementing inquiry from the viewpoint of each particular philosophical perspective. They conclude by discussing criteria for evaluating research conducted using the various methods and argue for increased collegial harmony and temperance. An invaluable contribution to the field, this volume will interest researchers, professionals, and students in the areas of management, qualitative research, organizational studies, and research methods.

In "Dream Worlds, " Rosalind Williams"" examines the origins and moral implications of consumer society, providing a cultural history of its emergence in late nineteenth-century France.

"Michael Pertschuk brings an insider's insight to the tumultuous years of the sixties and seventies, when the consumer protection bells rang from Washington throughout the land. An engrossing story of corporate versus consumer battles over health, safety, and the economic rights of Americans. The future of consumer justice is given wisdom by this eyewitness account." (Ralph Nadar). "This is a book that should be ready by everyone with a stake in regulation of business by bureaucrats in Washington. Whether you agree or disagree with his point of view - and I often disagree - you can always count on Mike Pertschuk to be provocative, stimulating, and certainly controversial." (Howard H. Bell, President, American Advertising Federation). "There is a lot of businessmen [sic] to disagree with in this book. It's troublesome and disturbing - not the least because Mike Pertschuk is a tough adversary. But any businessman [sic] - or citizen - who wants to know exactly how the politics of regulation work would be well advised to read this book - and be prepared." (George Koch, President and Chief Executive Officer Grocery Manufacturers of America). "Must reading for everyone who is a student of the consumer movement, past, present, and future, and its interaction with the government, media, private sector, et al. It is a superb 'How To' manual on tactics, and presents a rare inside look at how things really get done in that place called Washington, D.C." (Calvin Pond, Vice President, Public Affairs Division Safeway Stores, Inc.). "Pertschuk's book is outstanding; it is a beautiful blend of personal, firsthand observation and political and policy analysis." (Aaron Wildavsky, University of California, Berkeley). "A rare picture of how government works...sprightly, lucid, and appealing ...remarkably candid and honest, not only in revealing the labyrinthian interplays of politics but in disclosing the author's own attitudes and motives...An extraordinary document." (Charles Lindblom, Yale University). "There is no more controversial figure in Washington than Michael Pertschuk..." (Senator John Danforth).

Airbnb, gaming, escape rooms, major sporting events: contemporary capitalism no longer demands we merely consume things, but that we buy experiences. This book is concerned with the social, cultural and personal implications of this shift. The technologically-driven world we live in is no closer to securing the utopian ideal of a leisure society. Instead, the pursuit of leisure is often an attempt to escape our everyday existence. Exploring examples including sport, architecture, travel and social media, Steven Miles investigates how consumer culture has colonised 'experiences', revealing the ideological and psycho-social tensions at the heart of the 'experience society'. This first critical analysis of the experience economy sheds light on capitalism's ever more sophisticated infiltration of the everyday.

Jean Baudrillard's classic text was one of the first to focus on the process and meaning of consumption in contemporary culture. Originally published in 1970, the book makes a vital contribution to current debates on consumption. The book includes Baudrillard's most organized discussion of mass media culture, the meaning of leisure, and anomie in affluent society. A chapter on the body demonstrates Baudrillard's extraordinary prescience for flagging vital subjects in contemporary culture long before others. This English translation begins with a new introductory essay.

'The Unmanageable Consumer has long been one of my favorite books in the sociology of consumption. This long overdue third edition has updated and revised the basic argument in many ways. Most importantly, it now offers a new chapter on the consumer as worker or, more generally, the prosumer. Assign it to your classes (I have...and will again) and read it for your edification.' - George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, USA Western-style consumerism is often presented as unstoppable, yet its costs mount and its grip on consumer reality weakens. In this 20th Anniversary edition, Gabriel and Lang restate their thesis that consumerism is more fragile and unmanageable than is assumed by its proponents. Consumerism has been both stretched and undermined by globalization, the internet, social media and other cultural changes. Major environmental threats, debt, squeezed incomes and social inequalities now temper Western consumers' appetite for spending. The 20th century Deal, first championed by Henry Ford, of more consumption from higher waged work looks tattered. This edition of The Unmanageable Consumer continues to explore 10 different consumer models, and encourages analysis of contemporary consumerism. It looks at the spread of consumerism to developing countries like India and China and considers the effects of demographic changes and migration, and points to new features such as consumers taking on unwaged work. New to this edition: Coverage of new phenomenon such as social media and emerging markets Explores contemporary topics including the occupy movement and horsemeat scandal A new chapter on the consumer as worker. 'This is a remarkable and important book. The new edition updates consumer cultural studies to take into account austerity politics and the economic crisis, and the impact these have had on how we think about and experience everyday practices of shopping and consuming. The authors also build on and maintain the lively and challenging argument from the previous volumes which sees the consumer as an unstable space for a multiplicity of often contradictory responses which can unsettle the various strategies on the part of contemporary capitalism to have us buy more.' - Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London 'The book exemplifies how social science should be: engaged, insightful, imaginative, scholarly and highly socially and politically relevant. Strongly recommended to students, academics as well as all people interested in understanding our time and themselves in an age of consumerism and false promises.' - Mats Alvesson, Professor of Business Administration, Lund University, Sweden

'The Unmanageable Consumer has long been one of my favorite books in the sociology of consumption. This long overdue third edition has updated and revised the basic argument in many ways. Most importantly, it now offers a new chapter on the consumer as worker or, more generally, the prosumer. Assign it to your classes (I have...and will again) and read it for your edification.' - George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, USA Western-style consumerism is often presented as unstoppable, yet its costs mount and its grip on consumer reality weakens. In this 20th Anniversary edition, Gabriel and Lang restate their thesis that consumerism is more fragile and unmanageable than is assumed by its proponents. Consumerism has been both stretched and undermined by globalization, the internet, social media and other cultural changes. Major environmental threats, debt, squeezed incomes and social inequalities now temper Western consumers' appetite for spending. The 20th century Deal, first championed by Henry Ford, of more consumption from higher waged work looks tattered. This edition of The Unmanageable Consumer continues to explore 10 different consumer models, and encourages analysis of contemporary consumerism. It looks at the spread of consumerism to developing countries like India and China and considers the effects of demographic changes and migration, and points to new features such as consumers taking on unwaged work. New to this edition: Coverage of new phenomenon such as social media and emerging markets Explores contemporary topics including the occupy movement and horsemeat scandal A new chapter on the consumer as worker. 'This is a remarkable and important book. The new edition updates consumer cultural studies to take into account austerity politics and the economic crisis, and the impact these have had on how we think about and experience everyday practices of shopping and consuming. The authors also build on and maintain the lively and challenging argument from the previous volumes which sees the consumer as an unstable space for a multiplicity of often contradictory responses which can unsettle the various strategies on the part of contemporary capitalism to have us buy more.' - Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London 'The book exemplifies how social science should be: engaged, insightful, imaginative, scholarly and highly socially and politically relevant. Strongly recommended to students, academics as well as all people interested in understanding our time and themselves in an age of consumerism and false promises.' - Mats Alvesson, Professor of Business Administration, Lund University, Sweden