Consumer Rites
Synopsis
Slogans such as "Let's put Christ back into Christmas" or "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" hold an appeal to Christians who oppose the commercializing of events they hold sacred. However, through a close look at the rise of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt show us that commercial appropriations of these occasions were as religious in form as they were secular. The rituals of America's holiday bazaar that emerged in the nineteenth century offered a luxuriant merger of the holy and the profane--a heady blend of fashion and faith, merchandising and gift-giving, profits and sentiments, all celebrations of a devout consumption. In this richly illustrated book, which captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances for the mid-eighteenth century through the twentieth, the author offers a reassessment of the "consumer rites" that various social critics have long decried for their spiritual emptiness and banal sentimentality.
- Hakimiliki:
- 1995 Princeton University Press
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- ISBN-13:
- 9780691017211
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- Date of Addition:
- 2018-04-09T20:25:19Z
- Lugha:
- English
- Kategoria:
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.