Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture

This accessible, smart, and expansive book on shoppings impact on American life is in part historical, stretching back to the mid-19th century, yet also has a contemporary focus, with material on recent trends in shopping from the internet to Zagats guides.

Drawing inspiration from both Pierre Bourdieus work and Walter Benjamins seminal essay on the shopping arcades of 19th-century Paris, Zukin explores the forces that have made shopping so central to our lives: the rise of consumer culture, the never-ending quest for better value, and shoppings ability to help us improve our social status and attain new social identities.