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