Consumption and consumer society: the craft consumer and other essays

Introduction -- The desire for the new: its nature and social location as presented in theories of fashion and modern consumerism -- Consuming Goods and the Good of Consuming -- Conspicuous Confusion? A Critique of Veblen's Theory of Conspicuous Consumption -- The Meaning of objects and the meaning of actions: a critical note on the sociology of consumption and theories of clothing -- Shopping, Pleasure and the Sex War -- Consumption and the Rhetorics of Need and Want -- I Shop therefore I Know that I Am: The Metaphysical Basis of Modern consumerism -- The Craft Consumer: Culture, craft and consumption in a postmodern society -- The curse of the new: how the accelerating pursuit of the new is driving hyper-consumption -- A Matter of Necessity: Reflections on Need and Want in a Time of Lockdown.

This collection of high quality, largely previously published essays, analyses a range of controversies in the field of the sociology of culture and consumption. Campbell made a major contribution to the development of this field and he has a clear and coherent theoretical position which he employs to comment on interesting disputes among scholars seeking to understand consumer culture. Containing a brand new expansive essay reflecting on consumption in the age of a pandemic and drawing out some of the conceptual and practical implications of the relationship between wants and needs, science and norms, this synthesis will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of consumption, consumer and cultural sociology.