From the candy bar to the cigarette, records to roller coasters, a
technological revolution during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century precipitated a colossal shift in human consumption and
sensual experience. Food, drink, and many other consumer goods came
to be mass-produced, bottled, canned, condensed, and distilled,
unleashing new and intensified surges of pleasure, delight,
thrill--and addiction.
In "Packaged Pleasures," Gary S. Cross and Robert N. Proctor delve
into an uncharted chapter of American history, shedding new light
on the origins of modern consumer culture and how technologies have
transformed human sensory experience. In the space of only a few
decades, junk foods, cigarettes, movies, recorded sound, and thrill
rides brought about a revolution in what it means to taste, smell,
see, hear, and touch. New techniques of boxing, labeling, and
tubing gave consumers virtually unlimited access to pleasures they
could simply unwrap and enjoy. Manufacturers generated a seemingly
endless stream of sugar-filled, high-fat foods that were delicious
but detrimental to health. Mechanically rolled cigarettes entered
the market and quickly addicted millions. And many other packaged
pleasures dulled or displaced natural and social delights. Yet many
of these same new technologies also offered convenient and
effective medicines, unprecedented opportunities to enjoy music and
the visual arts, and more hygienic, varied, and nutritious food and
drink. For better or for worse, sensation became mechanized,
commercialized, and, to a large extent, democratized by being made
cheap and accessible. Cross and Proctor have delivered an
ingeniously constructed history of consumerism and consumer
technology that will make us all rethink some of our favorite
things.
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