Shelf Life: Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption

by Kim Humphery

Overview

This book offers a history and cultural analysis of the supermarket and of everyday shopping in twentieth-century Australia. It discusses the rise of the supermarket in the United States and Britain, and its eventual emergence in Australia in the 1960s. This is contrasted with the demise of the counter service grocery store. As well, the views of shoppers in Australia toward the "new" supermarkets are documented through the use of oral history. More broadly, the book involves a critical discussion of what it means to live in a consumer society and of the work of cultural analysts on consumption.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521626309
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/27/1998
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Emergent Cultures: 1. The discovery of the consumer; 2. Really modern retailing; Part II. New Worlds: 3. Engineering the shop; 4. She likes to look; 5. Tomorrow's shop today; 6. Living the transformation; Part III. Familiar Places: 7. Magic futures; 8. Strangers in paradise; 9. Theory without footnotes; 10. Towards the exit.