Consumption, culture and marketing are the central phenomena of our day. This book
reflects the growing interest in consumption and consumer culture in an increasing range
of social science disciplines. It reflects the convergence of interest in these areas
within the humanities, business and the social sciences. Consuming People looks at people
in the act of consumption and consumed by the act of consumption. It examines the
evolution of the concept and practice of consumption in modern history and its elevation
to great significance in everyday life. The book combines academic analysis with a
discussion of the possibilities for consuming people in the future. The authors provide
insights into modernity and the contemporary condition that will appeal to a wide range of
readers in many disciplines including sociologists, economists, anthropologists, Business
scholars, historians, Gender and Woman's Studies scholars, and philosophers, among others.
It will also interest the informed academic consumer.
Table of Contents:
1. The Consuming Society
2. Consumption Patterns
2.1 The core dimension
2.2 The growing trend in
consumption patterns
3. Making of the Consumer
3.1 A common history of
consumption and gender
3.2 The market and the
public and private domains
4. Consumption in Modern
Society
4.1 Need and wants: the
classical model
4.2 Classical models of
consumption
4.3 Deviations from the
classical model
5. The Social Construction
of Consumption Patterns in Modern Society
5.1 The structure of choice
5.2 Modern society
5.3 Economic hanges and
growth of consumption
5.4 Modernity, materialism
and industrialism
5.5 Consumption in
capitalist market economies
5.6 The shapers of American
consumption patterns
6. (Post)Modernity and
Consumption
6.1 The waning modernity
6.2 Postmodernism and
postmodernity
7. Postmodern Consumption
7.1 Consumption pattern
changes in the transition period
7.2 Paradoxes of the
transition period
7.3 Consumption in the
postmodern era
7.4 Modern and postmodern
consumption experiences
8. Global Consumption
8.1 The consumption
connection
8.2 Global glue of
consumption
8.3 Globalization of
fragmentation
8.4 Culture consumed
8.5 Consumption,
globalization and development
9. Consuming People
9.1 Modernity's legacy
9.2 Consumption and identity
9.3 From grand projects to
incremental action
9.4 Consumption politics
9.5 Consumers as grassroots
political force
10. The New Theater of
Consumption
10.1 The ascent of
consumption
10.2 Modern social formation
10.3 Erosion of the nation
state
10.4 Fluid identity
10.5 Redefinitions of
freedom
10.6 Modernity's last
straws?
10.7 New possibilities
10.8 Theaters of consumption
194 pages