"This book invites readers on a lively tour across the terrain of consumption in a briskly paced guide to mainstream economic theory and critical political economy. It is a highly engaging book that will appeal to those wishing to secure a deeper understanding of what it means to consume."Bruce Pietrykowski, University of Michigan"It is a sign of the consumer fetishism that pervades our society that good poiltical-economic works on consumption that do not simply fall prey to their subject matter and that retain a critical perspective are extremely hard to find. This book, though clearly written for classroom use, belongs in the same broad tradition as Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class, John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society, Michael Dawson's The Consumer Trap, and Naomi Klein's No Logo. Highly recommended."John Bellamy Foster, author of The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology
Ian Hudson is Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba.Mark Hudson is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba.