The Historical Consumer

The Historical Consumer
Author: Penelope Francks
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230367348

This book explores the rise of consumerism and the expanding variety of goods available in Japan. Japan is placed within the comparative context of the 'consumer revolution' in Europe and North America, contributing to the analysis of the ways in which consumption and everyday life change in the course of economic development.

Consumer Society in American History

Consumer Society in American History
Author: Lawrence B. Glickman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801484865

This volume offers the most comprehensive and incisive exploration of American consumer history to date, spanning the four centuries from the colonial era to the present.

Consumer Culture

Consumer Culture
Author: Roberta Sassatelli
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2007-05-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781412911818

'Roberta Sassatelli has written a thorough and wide-ranging synthetic account of social scientific research on consumption which will set the standard for the second generation of textbooks on cultures of consumption. Consumer Culture is an appealing and lucid introduction to the major themes - historical and contemporary, theoretical and empirical - surrounding the growth, nature and consequences of consumer culture. It will be of professional interest as well as serving a student audience' - Alan Warde, University of Manchester Showing the cultural and institutional processes that have brought the notion of the 'consumer' to life, this book guides the reader on a comprehensive journey through the history of how we have come to understand ourselves as consumers in a consumer society and reveals the profound ambiguities and ambivalences inherent within. While rooted in sociology, Sassatelli draws on the traditions of history, anthropology, geography and economics to give: - A history of the rise of consumer culture around the world; - A richly illustrated analysis of theory from neo-classical economics, to critical theory, to theories of practice and ritual de-commoditization; and - A compelling discussion of the politics underlying our consumption practices. An exemplary introduction to the history and theory of consumer culture, this book provides nuanced answers to some of the most central questions of our time.

Buying Power

Buying Power
Author: Lawrence B. Glickman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2009-06-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226298663

A definitive history of consumer activism, Buying Power traces the lineage of this political tradition back to our nation’s founding, revealing that Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word boycott even entered our lexicon. Taking the Boston Tea Party as his starting point, Lawrence Glickman argues that the rejection of British imports by revolutionary patriots inaugurated a continuous series of consumer boycotts, campaigns for safe and ethical consumption, and efforts to make goods more broadly accessible. He explores abolitionist-led efforts to eschew slave-made goods, African American consumer campaigns against Jim Crow, a 1930s refusal of silk from fascist Japan, and emerging contemporary movements like slow food. Uncovering previously unknown episodes and analyzing famous events from a fresh perspective, Glickman illuminates moments when consumer activism intersected with political and civil rights movements. He also sheds new light on activists’ relationship with the consumer movement, which gave rise to lobbies like the National Consumers League and Consumers Union as well as ill-fated legislation to create a federal Consumer Protection Agency.

Creditworthy

Creditworthy
Author: Josh Lauer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2017-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231544626

The first consumer credit bureaus appeared in the 1870s and quickly amassed huge archives of deeply personal information. Today, the three leading credit bureaus are among the most powerful institutions in modern life—yet we know almost nothing about them. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are multi-billion-dollar corporations that track our movements, spending behavior, and financial status. This data is used to predict our riskiness as borrowers and to judge our trustworthiness and value in a broad array of contexts, from insurance and marketing to employment and housing. In Creditworthy, the first comprehensive history of this crucial American institution, Josh Lauer explores the evolution of credit reporting from its nineteenth-century origins to the rise of the modern consumer data industry. By revealing the sophistication of early credit reporting networks, Creditworthy highlights the leading role that commercial surveillance has played—ahead of state surveillance systems—in monitoring the economic lives of Americans. Lauer charts how credit reporting grew from an industry that relied on personal knowledge of consumers to one that employs sophisticated algorithms to determine a person's trustworthiness. Ultimately, Lauer argues that by converting individual reputations into brief written reports—and, later, credit ratings and credit scores—credit bureaus did something more profound: they invented the modern concept of financial identity. Creditworthy reminds us that creditworthiness is never just about economic "facts." It is fundamentally concerned with—and determines—our social standing as an honest, reliable, profit-generating person.

The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800

The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800
Author: Michael Kwass
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2022-02-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521198704

A bold new interpretation of 'consumer revolution' in 18th-century Europe, examining globalization and the politics of consumption in the age of Revolution.

Consumer Choice in Historical Archaeology

Consumer Choice in Historical Archaeology
Author: S.M. SpencerWood
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 440
Release: 1987-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780306423185

Historical archaeology has made great strides during the last two decades. Early archaeological reports were dominated by descriptions of features and artifacts, while research on artifacts was concentrated on studies of topology, technology, and chronology. Site reports from the 1960s and 1970s commonly expressed faith in the potential artifacts had for aiding in the identifying socioeconomic status differences and for understanding the relationships be tween the social classes in terms of their material culture. An emphasis was placed on the presence or absence of porcelain or teaware as an indication of social status. These were typical features in site reports written just a few years ago. During this same period, advances were being made in the study of food bone as archaeologists moved away from bone counts to minimal animal counts and then on to the costs of various cuts of meat. Within the last five years our ability to address questions of the rela tionship between material culture and socioeconomic status has greatly ex panded. The essays in this volume present efforts toward measuring expendi ture and consumption patterns represented by commonly recovered artifacts and food bone. These patterns of consumption are examined in conjunction with evidence from documentary sources that provide information on occupa tions, wealth levels, and ethnic affiliations of those that did the consuming. One of the refreshing aspects of these papers is that the authors are not afraid of documents, and their use of them is not limited to a role of confirmation.

A Global History of Consumer Co-operation since 1850

A Global History of Consumer Co-operation since 1850
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 877
Release: 2017-07-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004336559

With contributions from over 30 scholars, A Global History of Consumer Co-operation surveys the origins and development of the consumer co-operative movement from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day. The contributions, covering the history of co-operation in different national contexts in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia, illustrate the wide variety of forms that consumer co-operatives have taken; the different political, economic and social contexts in which they have operated; the ideological influences on their development; and the reasons for their expansion and decline at different times. The book also explores the connections between co-operatives in different parts of the world, challenging assumptions that the story of global co-operation can be traced exclusively to the 1844 Rochdale Co-operative Society. Contributors are: Amélie Artis, Nikola Balnave, Patrizia Battilani, Johann Brazda, Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens, María Eugenia Castelao Caruana, Kay-Wah Chan, Bernard Degen, Danièle Demoustier, Espen Ekberg, Dulce Freire, Katarina Friberg, Mary Hilson, Mary Ip, Florian Jagschitz, Pernilla Jonsson, Kim Hyung-mi, Akira Kurimoto, Simon Lambersens, Catherine C LeGrand, Ian MacPherson, Francisco José Medina-Albaladejo, Alain Mélo, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Silke Neunsinger, Greg Patmore, Joana Dias Pereira, Michael Prinz, Siegfried Rom, Robert Schediwy, Corrado Secchi, Geert Van Goethem, Griselda Verbeke, Rachael Vorberg-Rugh, Mirta Vuotto, Anthony Webster and John Wilson.

Children and Consumer Culture in American Society

Children and Consumer Culture in American Society
Author: Lisa Jacobson
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313331405

Children play a crucial role in today's economy. According to some estimates, children spend or influence the spending of up to $500 billion annually. Journalists, sociologists, and media reformers often present mass marketing toward children as a recent fall from grace, but the roots of children's consumerism — and the anxieties over it — date back more than a century. Throughout the twentieth century, a wide variety of groups — including advertisers, retailers, parents, social reformers, child experts, public schools, and children themselves — helped to socialize children as consumers and struggled to define the proper boundaries of the market. The essays and documents in this volume illuminate the historical circumstances and cultural conflicts that helped to produce, shape, and legitimize children's consumerism. Focusing primarily on the period from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century, this book examines how and why children and adolescents acquired new economic roles as consumers, and how these new roles both reflected and produced dynamic changes in family life and the culture of capitalism. This volume also reveals how children and adolescents have used consumer goods to define personal identities and peer relationships — sometimes in opposition to marketers' expectations and parental intentions.

The Consumer Society

The Consumer Society
Author: Neva R. Goodwin
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2013-04-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1597267902

The developed countries, particularly the United States, consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, yet high and rising levels of consumption do not necessarily lead to greater satisfaction, security, or well-being, even for affluent consumers. The Consumer Society provides brief summaries of the most important and influential writings on the environmental, moral, and social implications of a consumer society and consumer lifestyles. Each section consists of ten to twelve summaries of critical writings in a specific area, with an introductory essay that outlines the state of knowledge in that area and indicates where further research is needed. Sections cover: Scope and Definition Consumption in the Affluent Society Family, Gender, and Socialization The History of Consumerism Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption Critiques and Alternatives in Economic Theory Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising, and Wants Creation Consumption and the Environment Globalization and Consumer Culture Visions of an Alternative This book is the second volume in the Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series, which provides surveys of the most significant writings in emergent areas of economics -- an invaluable aid in fast-growing fields where genuine new ground is being broken. The series brings together economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to develop analyses that challenge and enrich the dominant neoclassical paradigm. The Consumer Society is an essential guide to and summary of the literature of consumption and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the deeper economic, social, and ethical implications of consumerism.