Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption and the Environment

Book Description

Beyond the Numbers presents a thought-provoking series of essays by leading authorities on issues of population and consumption. The essays both define the poles of debate and explore common ground beyond the polarized rhetoric.

Specific chapters consider each of the broad topics addressed at the International Conference on Population and Development held in September 1994 in Cairo, Egypt. The essays are supplemented by sidebars and short articles featuring more impassioned voices that highlight issues of interest not fully explored in the overviews.

As well as providing a sense of the difficulties involved in dealing with these issues, the essays make clear that constructive action is possible.

Topics covered include:

the interrelationships between population, economic growth, consumption, and development
the history of population and family planning efforts
gender equality and the empowerment of women
reproductive rights, reproductive health, family planning, health and mortality

Customer Reviews:

Laurie Mazur is brilliant.......1998-09-13

If population issues are a turn-on, this is the book for you. Mazur gathers an enormous wealth of fascinating information and distills it into a readable and enlightening format. Sorry, but you will learn something important here.

Cultural Politics of Food and Eating (Blackwell Readers in Anthropology)

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Left me hungry for more!
A useful and timely collection
Culture through the lens of food - and vice versa

Cultural Politics of Food and Eating (Blackwell Readers in Anthropology)

Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Customs & Traditions | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Food and Culture: A Reader
Food in the USA
Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture)
Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America, Revised Edition (California Studies in Food and Culture)
Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food (California Studies in Food and Culture)

ASIN: 0631230920

Book Description

Food is an important and endlessly fascinating lens for social and cultural analysis -not only for anthropologists, but also for scholars of history, literature, cultural studies, political economy, and public policy. The subject is a central idiom for understanding cultural practices and for teaching about culture on many levels. The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating is a collection of readings that uses the study of food as a vehicle for addressing broad themes that are emerging in social anthropology: globalization, capitalism, market economies, and consumption practices.The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating offers an ethnographically informed perspective on the ways in which people use food to make sense of life in an increasingly interconnected world. It includes studies from eleven countries across five continents on such hot topics as sushi, fast food, gourmet foods, and food scares and contamination.

Customer Reviews:

Left me hungry for more!.......2007-05-20

The book makes an interesting case using good evidence for most of it's text.

Susanne Friedberg argues that in spite of egalitarian origins to transform the world, the organic/natural foods revolution begun in the 1960's has done little to eradicate the conditions in other countries--where tainted food is a defacto way of life for people. The most careful washing cannot fully eliminate everything every time.

However, ongoing disparities in America where people on public assistance cannot presently afford to eat healthy--regardless of how much they want to also needed to be addressed in Warren Belasco's essay on how the hippies introduced organic food. Low-income people do not necessarily have to contend with the same degree of food impurity as overseas, but are also subject to economic disparities in their access to healthy food. They ironically remain stuck with the brands the hippies and their present day counterparts shun because it IS the cheapest to purchase with the resources they do have and the organic companies have not found a way to make the American dollar stretch further. Why should only certain groups of people be able to eat safe and healthy food?

The editor and her contributors are empathetic to the subject matter--which I have not previously seen in other anthologies. Yet, they mostly present it with a critical perspective, demanding that the reader examine previous assumptions about the relationship between food and politics--and our own personal relationship.

A useful and timely collection.......2005-10-20

Despite the fact that, through some oversight, the editors neglected to include any of my own writing in the collection, it is the state-of-the-art in the cultural anthropology of food. I will definitely be using it as a basic text in my food and culture class. The chapters include contributions by many of the best people working in this growing subfield, and they really show how much the field has changed in a relatively short period. It has a good balance of cultural analysis, political-economy and culture history. I plan to supplement it with Lien and Nerlich's "The Politics of Food" collection from Berg, which is more issues-oriented and has more on food safety, the politics of localism, and fast/slow conflicts.

Culture through the lens of food - and vice versa.......2005-08-15

This book is a collection of essays that were previously published in journals such as "Foreign Affairs" and "journal of consumer culture." The authors are anthropologists, political scientists, and historians among others. Most essays focus on one piece of food item, brand or food related issue (such as McDonalds, green beans, or Mad Cow disease) and examines this issue within the context of a country (such as China, Burkina Faso, or the U.K.) The essays are academically written, but highly readable and they give interesting and unique information about the country as well as the food issue in question within the context of the country. The overall theme of many of the essays seemed to be that food influences culture, and culture interprets food so that the influence is two-way. Some of the articles were fascinating to read. For example, I enjoyed learning about how McDonalds in China was accepted into the local culture, and how its meaning in China is significantly different from that in the USA. I liked learning about the functions served by Indo-Pak grocery stores in Indian communities, of how sushi became a well known product across the world, and how and why French chocolatiers opposed Belgian ones. The most interesting article to me was one about the reactions to genetically manipulated crop in the USA and Europe, and how these reactions affect those in developing countries in adverse ways. Even if I did not know anything about the country in question, the book gave sufficient background information about the country and the issue to make it interesting and exciting. While reading about one product or issue, I found that I learned a lot about the country and its people.

The essays differed in their approaches to the issues. I guess this reflected the backgrounds of authors (whether they were anthropologists or political scientists). For example, there were two articles about McDonalds in China where the writings mainly focused on how McDonalds was accepted and interpreted in China, without a discussion of any health implications of these changes. As someone who read Fast Food Nation, I was saddened by the seemingly unquestioned acceptance of junk food into foreign countries and was curious to know the most recent developments if any. This issue was more prominently discussed in essays written by political scientists. One author discussed the implications of fast food for Mexican diet, and rising health concerns traced to changes in diet, which I found interesting and important.

All in all, this is one very good book. I highly recommend it if you are interested in food, culture, or both.

Average customer rating:

May have bitten off more than I could chew =)

The Consumer Society Reader
Douglas Holt
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Consumer Behavior | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

An All-Consuming Century
The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need
The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture
Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption

ASIN: 1565845986

Book Description

"We live in what may be the most consumer-oriented society in history. . . .Once a purely utilitarian chore, shopping has been elevated to the status of a national passion."--Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American. A unique and definitive reader on our "national passion"--buying stuff--and its consequences for American society. We are citizens, owners and workers, believers and heathens, but today more than anything else we are consumers. How this came to be and its consequences for us all is the subject of this pioneering reader on the rise--and continued rise--of consumerism. The Consumer Society Reader features a range of key works on the nature and evolution of consumer society. It includes classics such as the Frankfurt School writers Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse on the Culture Industry; Thorstein Veblen's oft-cited writings on "conspicuous consumption"; Betty Friedan on the housewife's central role in consumer society; and John Kenneth Galbraith's influential analysis of the "affluent society." The book also includes much-discussed recent work by such leading critics as Pierre Bourdieu, Thomas Frank, bell hooks, Bill McKibben, and Janice Radway. A landmark in social criticism, The Consumer Society Reader is sure to become the standard book on the subject.

Customer Reviews:

May have bitten off more than I could chew =).......2001-01-16

I have read numerous books regarding consumption, simplicity, etc. I have read all of Juliet Schor's books also. This books is an excellent thought provoking book, HOWEVER, be sure that you have a clear mind and a good chunk of time on your hands. Yes, the book is long, but that's not really the issue. It's a compilation of essays, some quite old. They do offer a lot of insight, but it tends to be more economic insight. If you enjoy reading about environmental issues and voluntary simplicity, this does have some of that, but much of it is information about things like trends in buying, capitalism and advertising. While it's an interesting read, I would advise checking it out of the library and reading the essays that interest you. Keeping this book in your library doesn't serve much of a purpose. Not even for inspiration and motivation, which is a reason I keep many of the simplicity books that I enjoy. Bottom line... pretty good read, but borrow, don't buy it.

Popular Culture: Production and Consumption (Blackwell Readers in Sociology)

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Popular Culture: Production and Consumption (Blackwell Readers in Sociology)

Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Methods
Rethinking Popular Culture: Contempory Perspectives in Cultural Studies
Popular Culture: A Reader
Inventing Popular Culture: From Folklore to Globalization (Blackwell Manifestos)
The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things

ASIN: 063121710X

Book Description

This is a rich collection of essays highlighting the complex relationship between cultural production and consumption using examples from music, television, magazines, sports, and advertising. Classic, contemporary, and newly commissioned articles examine the key themes and debates on popular culture by key scholars. Using a multitude of perspectives the book explores how culture is commodified and turned into profit, including a study of contemporary celebrity and fandom. In addition, issues of social and cultural diversity are addressed in readings that are accessible and provocative for both students and academics.

Consumer Society in American History: A Reader

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Consumer Society in American History: A Reader

Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Economic History | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Consumer Behavior | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Reference | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
An All-Consuming Century
Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture
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Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940

ASIN: 0801484863

Book Description

Consumption has often been called America's true national pastime. From the earliest European explorers trading with Native Americans to today's Internet shoppers, consumerism has driven American society. Until recent years, however, consumerism has received little serious attention from historians and other scholars.

This welcome volume offers the most comprehensive and incisive exploration of American consumer history to date. The first book on this topic to span the four centuries from the colonial era to the present, and the first to propose theoretical frameworks, the volume brings consumer society to the center of American history. Indeed, its authors demonstrate the many ways their research enhances knowledge of a broad range of historical topics, such as politics, labor ideology, immigrant life, and race, gender, and class relations. By including types of consumer studies which are seldom linked, this volume offers both a basis for historical synthesis and a springboard for further inquiry.

With contributions by Raymond Williams, Jean Baudrillard, Juliet B. Schor, Kim Moody, Jean-Christophe Agnew, and many others, plus the most comprehensive bibliographical essay ever produced on the historiography of American consumption, Consumer Society in American History will take its place as the definitive sourcebook for this emerging field.

Contributors Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University Joyce Appleby, University of California, Los Angeles James Axtell, College of William and Mary Jean Baudrillard, Paris Wendell Berry, Kentucky T. H. Breen, Northwestern University Colin Campbell, University of York Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard University Alan Durning, Northwest Environment Watch, Seattle John Elkington, London James Fallows, Washington, D.C. Lawrence B. Glickman, University of South Carolina Cheryl Greenberg, Trinity College, Hartford Julia Hailes, London Andrew Heinze, University of San Francisco Joel Makower, Washington, D.C. Elaine Tyler May, University of Minnesota Kim Moody, Detroit, MI H. F. Moorhouse, University of Glasgow George J. Sanchez, University of Southern California Juliet B. Schor, Harvard University Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego Mark A. Swiencicki, University of Connecticut Steven Waldman, Washington, D.C. Robert E. Weems, Jr., University of Missouri, Columbia Raymond Williams (19211988), Cambridge University

The Taste of American Place: A Reader on Regional and Ethnic Foods
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The Taste of American Place: A Reader on Regional and Ethnic Foods
Barbara G. Shortridge, James R. Shortridge
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | U.S. Regional | Regional & International | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Human Geography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Culture | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Food in the USA

Food and Culture: A Reader

It's All American Food : The Best Recipes for More than 400 New American Classics

Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory (Materializing Culture)

No Foreign Food: The American Diet in Time and Place (Geographies of the Imagination)

ASIN: 0847685071

Book Description

Tracing the intertwined roles of food, ethnicity, and regionalism in the construction of American identity, this textbook examines the central role food plays in our lives. Drawing on a range of disciplines--including sociology, anthropology, folklore, geography, history, and nutrition--the editors have selected a group of engaging essays to help students explore the idea of food as a window into American culture. Visit our website for sample chapters!

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The Consumer Society Reader

Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Consumer Behavior | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Culture And Consumption II: Markets, Meaning, And Brand Management
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Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists (Anthropology and Material Culture)

ASIN: 0631207988

Book Description

The Consumer Society Reader is the most substantial collection to date on contemporary and classic literature on consumption and consumer society. It introduces students and researchers to the topics, themes, and preoccupations of twentieth-century consumer culture. Part I introduces some of the important theoretical and conceptual material through which we have come to appreciate the dominant themes of our consumer society. Contributions from a range of thinkers - Pierre Bourdieu, Dick Hebdige, and Michel de Certeau, among others - give special attention to the nature of human needs, their satisfaction, and the broad implications of the provision of social and material goods by a capitalist means of production. Part II chronicles the evolution of the modern consumer society from its inception to the present day. Contemporary and popular writers, including John Kenneth Galbraith, Vance Packard, and Jean Baudrillard chart the dynamism of consumer society; its many changing social, cultural, economic, and political turns over time; and the spirited responses it has provoked from critics.

Average customer rating:

Interesting

The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader
Jennifer Scanlon
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Consumer Behavior | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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When Sex Became Gender (Perspectives on Gender)
The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective
Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle For Workers' Rights At Wal-Mart
Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

ASIN: 0814781322
Release Date: 2000-08-01

Book Description

What is the relationship between gender and consumerism? Jennifer Scanlon gathers a collection of readings and archival materials to explore the multiple and contradictory ways in which women and men consume. Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural in scope, The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader introduces the reader to some of the most compelling issues and arguments in this growing field of study. In questioning traditional ways of analyzing the relationships between gender and consumer culture, these essays analyze the liberatory and oppressive nature of consumer culture in both historical and contemporary contexts.

The scholars gathered here look at the gendered relationship between the home and consumer culture, individual and group identity through purchasing, the supply side of consumer culture, and the ways in which consumers embrace, resist, and manipulate the messages and the activities of consumer culture. Topics range from white middle-class female shoplifters to the gendered depiction of Native Americans in nineteenth-century advertising, from gay men's acquisition of domestic space in early twentieth-century New York to black and Latino men's cultural resistance through dress. Archival materials link the essays in each section, creating a further historical context, and providing a connection between the readings and larger questions and issues currently being debated about gender and consumer culture.

Contributors include Andrew Heinze, Erika Rappaport, George Chauncey, Steven M. Gelber, Jeffrey Steele, Ann McClintock, Robert E. Weems, Jr., Lillian Faderman, Malcolm Gladwell, Jennifer Scanlon, Lizabeth Cohen, Jane Bryce, Susan J. Douglas, Kenon Breazeale, Kathy Peiss, Elaine S. Abelson, Natasha B. Barnes, Danae Clark, Stuart Cosgrove.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting.......2002-05-19

Most of the time, this reads like a text book--or at least some sort of book you'd have for a class. But that's not a bad thing. This just isn't something you pick up just for fun. You have to be interested.

I have a growing interest in women's studies, so anything releating to gender is of interest to me. Most of the essays in this book are interesting glimpses of small aspects of gender (often coupled with race or class, sometimes in historical contexts) in the consumer culture. The specialized information is very interesting, and the accompanying pictures and graphics add to it.

Some of the contributions, however, are rather dull. Don't be afraid to skip something you don't want to read. Just go to the next article. Chances are, you won't be missing much.

Book Description

With general discussions from focused case studies, and academic and popular sources, Exchanges engages students and teachers in an analysis of consumer culture. Through readings that explore the intersection between consumerism and key themes-such as group and personal identity, education, entertainment, and place-the book documents the social space we inhabit. Pre-writing exercises, group work, and writing assignments involving Internet research explore consumer culture and illustrate how human beings are consumers, biologically and socially. For anyone interested in consumer culture.

The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Consumption (Earthscan Readers Series)

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The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Consumption (Earthscan Readers Series)

Manufacturer: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Sustainable Development | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Natural Resources | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Renewable Energy | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1844071642

Book Description

* A highly accessible yet comprehensive collection of writings from the world’s foremost thinkers on the subject
* Sustainable Consumption is a topical, multidisciplinary field and a vital component of current debates about sustainable development
* A topic with rapidly growing institutional and academic interest

Politically, intellectually, and socially, sustainable consumption is a controversial concept. Consumption drives our economies and defines our lives: making it sustainable is an enormous and essential challenge. It was a key subject covered at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, which set in place a ten-year program of effort by national governments to develop strategies for sustainable consumption and production. The problem of how to influence consumer behavior in the direction of more sustainable choices continues to challenge both opinion formers and policymakers
alike.

This book provides a coherent synthesis of key contributions to the literature on consumption and sustainability, comprising a substantive collection of selected papers and extracts from books, journals, and institutional publications. Presented with a comprehensive introductory overview written by the editor, the Reader also provides an invaluable “route map” through the complex intellectual terrain relevant to the pursuit of sustainable consumption.

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