Stephen Edgell is Professor of Sociology at the University of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. He is the author of Middle Class Couples: A Study of Segregation, Domination and Inequality in Marriage (1980), and Class (1993); coauthor of A Measure of Thatcherism: A Sociology of Britain (1991); and joint editor of Debating the Future of the Public Sphere (1995) and Consumption Matters: The Production and Experience of Consumption (1996). He has published extensively in British, European, and American journals on Thorstein Veblen and on the sociology of the family, class, work, and politics. He is an elected director of the International Thorstein Veblen Association.