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Author Woloson, Wendy A., 1964- author.

Title Crap : a history of cheap stuff in America / Wendy A. Woloson.

Publication Info. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2020.
©2020

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 South Windsor Public Library - Non Fiction  688.7 WOLOSON    DUE 04-13-24
Description 388 pages, : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Introduction : Our crap, our selves -- A nation of cheap jacks. From the cheapening mania to universal cheapness ; Cheap goods in a chain store age -- Better living through gadgetry. Perpetual improvements ; Gadget mania -- Land of the free. Getting nothing for something ; The price of loyalty -- (No) accounting for taste. The business of heritage ; Connoisseurship for sale -- Value propositions. Collecting commemoration ; Manufacturing scarcity -- But wait, there's more. Joke's on you -- Epilogue : a world made of crap.
Summary "Wendy Woloson considers seriously the detritus of everyday consumerist Western lives--a category that comprises objects that function as art, jokes, tools, embodiments of fantasies, cultural signifiers, status symbols, and much more; a.k.a. "crap." She seeks to use these possessions to illuminate our society, culture, and economy. Why do we--as individuals and as a culture--have these things? Where do they come from, and why do we want them? In her words, this investigation "brings together material culture, consumer culture, behavioral economics, cultural economics, the histories of industrialization, capitalism and international trade, among other disciplines." Also, there's a Lightning Sausage"-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Novelties -- United States -- History.
Novelties -- Social aspects -- United States.
Consumption (Economics) -- Social aspects -- United States.
Material culture -- United States.
United States -- Civilization.
Civilization. (OCoLC)fst00862898
Consumption (Economics) -- Social aspects. (OCoLC)fst00876475
Material culture. (OCoLC)fst01011739
Novelties. (OCoLC)fst01039788
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Other Form: ebook version : 9780226664491
ISBN 9780226664354 (hardcover)
022666435X (hardcover)
9780226664491 (electronic book)
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