Why read The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism?

Book cover of The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism

Book description

Originally published in 1987, Colin Campbell's classic treatise on the sociology of consumption has become one of the most widely cited texts in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and the history of ideas. In the thirty years since its publication, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism has lost…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Erwin Dekker

Author

Perhaps Max Weber’s book on the Protestant Ethic should be on my list. But I prefer this book by sociologist Campbell which is at least as bold in its argument. It takes a fresh look at consumption and suggests that modern consumption draws on human imagination, a desire for novelty, and experimentation. Like Weber, Campbell traces the historical roots of modern economic action, and he does so by suggesting that Romanticism was not a hostile reaction to capitalism, but the imaginative counterpart to the productive revolution of the eighteenth century. As such Romanticism facilitated the Industrial Revolution and made the…

From Erwin's list on The best books to understand why cultural knowledge is essential to understand the economy.