Consumer Culture Reborn : The Cultural Politics of Consumption

lee Brings Together The Discourses Of Political Economy And Cultural Studies In Order To Shed Light On Our Social Situations. Lee Sees The Commodity As The Vital Touchstone Behind Both Analysis Of The Economy And Culture.

Consumer Culture Reborn places consumption as the focal point at which economy and culture converge. The book draws the discourses of political economy and cultural studies in a historical context as a means to understand our social situation as we approach the year 2000.

Taking as its central theme the ability of capitalist production to transform the material and social world which sustains it, Lee focuses upon some of the ways in which this impulse has altered the means used by ordinary people to reproduce their lives and lifestyles.

Treating the commodity as the primary touchstone for the analysis of both the economy and culture, Consumer Culture Reborn charts the rise and fall of the 'first' mass consumption society of the post-war years. It also considers the evidence supporting new consumer society today, exploring the ways in which the organization of economic affairs had profound consequences for the formation of lived, and eveyrdaycultures.

Consumer Culture Reborn focuses on consumption as the point at which economy and culture combine. The book draws the often polarised discourses of political economy and cultural studies closer together in a historical context as a means of understanding our social situations as we approach the end of the millenium. Taking as its central theme the ability of the capitalist mode of production to transform the material and social world which sustains it, the book focuses on some of the ways in which this transformational impulse has altered the means by which ordinary people reproduce their life and their patterns of life. Neither a history book, nor simply a book of theory, Consumer Culture Reborn fuses elements of economic, social and cultural theory in an historical perspective.