Commodifying Everything: Relationships of the Market

by Strasser,Susan; Strasser,Susan

• ISBN13: 9780415935913
• ISBN10: 0415935911
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2003-05-09
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Commodifying Everything is an engaging historical examination of the complex processes of commodification that define contemporary global culture. With essays that span both geography and disciplinary approaches, this unique volume raises conceptual questions through exceptional case studies, weaving together exciting but surprising topics that demonstrate how friendship, death, spirituality, and artisanship all have a price. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Susan Strasser is a professor of history at the University of Delaware and a leading historian of American consumer culture

Table of Contents

Boundaries of the Market
Introduction	p. 3
The Give-and-Take of Consumer Culture	p. 11
Love and Money: Intimate Relationships and the Market
Buying Your Friends: The Pet Business and American Consumer Culture	p. 43
The Commodity of Self: Nineteenth-Century Human Hair Jewelry	p. 71
Goods and Services: Expanding Market Relationships
An Undesired Necessity: The Commodification of Medical Service in the Interwar United States	p. 97
"Preserving Their Form and Features": The Commodification of Coffins in the American Understanding of Death	p. 119
God and Mammon: Selling and the Sacred
Healthcare as Product: Catholic Sisters Confront Charity and the Hospital Marketplace, 1865-1925	p. 143
"Preachers and Peddlers of God": Ex-Slaves and the Selling of African-American Religion in the American South	p. 169
The Politics of Ghee Adulteration and Its Public Resolutions in Calcutta, c. 1917	p. 191
Village and Nation: Community, Identity, and the Market
Marketing Community: State Reform of Indian Village Property and Expenditure in Colonial Mexico, 1775-1810	p. 215
Commodifying Chinese Nationalism: MSG and the Flavor of Patriotic Production	p. 235
Packaging Skills: Calibrating Cheese to the Global Market	p. 259
Contributors	p. 289
Index	p. 293
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.