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Culture and consumption : new approaches to the symbolic character of consumer goods and activities / Grant McCracken.

By: McCracken, Grant David, 1951-.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1988Description: xv, 174 p. ; 25 cm. + pbk.ISBN: 0253315263.Subject(s): Consumption (Economics) -- History | Culture -- History | Social values -- HistoryDDC classification: 339.47
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending 339.47 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00066202
Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Part I History
  • 1 The Making of Modern Consumption
  • 2 "Ever Dearer in Our Thoughts": Patina and the Representation of Status before and after the Eighteenth Century
  • 3 Lois Roget: Curatorial Consumer in a Modern World
  • Part II Theory
  • 4 Clothing as Language: An Object Lesson in the Study of the Expressive Properties of Material Culture
  • 5 Meaning Manufacture and Movement in the World of Goods
  • Part III Practice
  • 6 Consumer Goods, Gender Construction, and a Rehabilitated Trickle-down Theory
  • 7 The Evocative Power of Things: Consumer Goods and the Preservation of Hopes and Ideals
  • 8 Diderot Unitites and the Diderot Effect: Neglected Cultural Aspects of Consumption
  • 9 Consumption, Change, and Continuity
  • Notes
  • References
  • Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In a series of provocative essays, McCracken (anthropologist, University of Guelph, Canada) examines the relationship between culture and consumption. ``Consumption'' is broadly defined to include ``the processes by which consumer goods and services are created, bought and used.'' ``Culture'' is defined as those ``ideas and activities with which we construe and construct our world.'' The relationship between the two is one of intense mutuality. In developing this theme, the author analyzes the relationship in three contexts: history, theory, and practice. In all three sections, the essays include critical evaluations of the contributions of a long list of contemporary writers. The historical essays examine the origins and development of the consumer society. Those on theory analyze theoretical models that attempt to relate culture and consumption. In the last section, McCracken demonstrates how we use the meaning of consumer goods to fashion and sustain certain hopes, maintain life-styles, and manage change. This critical examination of relevant contemporary literature is a stimulating addition to knowledge and theory about the interrelationship of culture and consumption. Excellent extensive list of references. Upper-division and graduate collections.-P.M. Titus, emeritus, Kenyon College