Life in the west is lived within a culture awash with the advertising, brand-names and labels of conspicuous consumerism. Accordingly, consumerism and consumer culture have become central to critical discussions of identity, postmodernity and culture as never before. And yet critiques of consumerism are largely confined to those who argue either for or against notions of elitism or manipulation. In the main, theorists such as Bauman, Giddens and Hall do not offer alternatives to consumerism, but argue that it is an all-enveloping and inescapable imperative, and a dominant motivation in contemporary life. This book challenges the assumptions behind these discussions of consumerism, and to broaden our understanding of the true nature of contemporary society. Lodziak argues that all-encompassing visions of consumerism are useful only as an ideology. They are not a realistic representation of modern culture and society, and, therefore, the understanding of identity that they offer is limited. In The Myth of Consumerism Lodziak opens up the debate, offering a cogent critique of consumer culture and analysing the role it really plays in our lives.

Widely regarded as a major contemporary theoretician, Andre Gorz's critique of social formations offers both a direction and meaning to the current technological revolution. The absence of English texts focussing on Gorz should make this reader an accessible introduction to his work. The book traces the development of Gorz's political and philosophical theory over a period of more than four decades. His influence on European intellectual and political culture is examined and the work focuses also on Gorz's own formative influences in the development of his perspective, in particular his relationship with Satre. Gorz's accounts of the failure of the uprising in May 1968 is assessed and the book illustrates how this heralded the transiton towards the search for new movements to engage in emancipatory socialism. In particular, it addresses Gorz's growing concern with ecological matters which provided the foundation for his comtemporary writing.