-Core textbook for technical and professional communication courses, providing a leaner and more innovative alternative to the current market leaders -Technical communication courses are increasingly common as core undergraduate courses throughout the US, and growing in Europe and Asia -Distinctive focus on design thinking approach to technical communication, and greater emphasis on collaboration skills and intercultural and international technical communication than competitors -Provides a leaner alternative to the competing 700-page textbooks -eResource includes instructor's manual with web links, exercises, and teaching guidance for face-to-face and online teaching

-Core textbook for technical and professional communication courses, providing a leaner and more innovative alternative to the current market leaders -Technical communication courses are increasingly common as core undergraduate courses throughout the US, and growing in Europe and Asia -Distinctive focus on design thinking approach to technical communication, and greater emphasis on collaboration skills and intercultural and international technical communication than competitors -Provides a leaner alternative to the competing 700-page textbooks -eResource includes instructor's manual with web links, exercises, and teaching guidance for face-to-face and online teaching

The degree to which shopping, or, more broadly, consumerism, is both critiqued and defended in American society confirms the role that commercial goods play in our daily lives. This collection of essays provides case studies depicting selected aspects of this engaging activity. The authors include several historians with diverging specialties: an art historian, an anthropologist, an environmental journalist, a geographer and urban planner, and practicing artists. Each author demonstrates how a material culture perspective—a focus on the relationship between people and their things—can illuminate a specific corner of consumption. Connecting the essays are concerns about the spaces in which shopping occurs; about the experience of shopping itself, both individual and social; and about its economic, environmental, and personal downsides. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how a material culture perspective on shopping yields insights into multiple aspects of American culture. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.