Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption: Fast Food, Credit Cards and Casinos

Have we moved from work-centred to consumption-centred societies? What does the rise of fast-food and credit cards tell us about the way we live now? In this book, one of the leading social theorists and cultural commentators of modern times, turns his gaze on consumption. George Ritzer, author of the famous McDonaldization thesis, demonstrates the irrational consequences of the rational desire to consume and commodify. He examines how McDonaldization might be resisted, and situates the reader in the new cultural spaces that are emerging in society: shopping malls, casino hotels, Disneyfied theme parks and Las Vegas -- the new 'cathedrals of consumption' as he calls them. Brimming with ideas and insights, this accessible book shows how new processes of consumption relate to globalization theory. In illuminating discussions of the work of Thorstein Veblen and the French situationists, Ritzer unearths the fundamental problems of consumption in older sociological traditions. He indicates how transgression is bound up with consumption, through an investigation of the obscene in popular and postmodern culture. Explorations in the Sociology of Consumption will be essential reading for students of sociology, cultural studies and anyone interested in the pattern of consumption processes in contemporary society.