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University of California Press

Dream Worlds

Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France
by Rosalind H. Williams (Author)
Paperback eBook
Price: $49.95 / £42.00
Publication Date: Nov 2023
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 463
ISBN: 9780520341555
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About the Book

In Dream Worlds, Rosalind Williams examines the origins and moral implications of consumer society, providing a cultural history of its emergence in late nineteenth-century France.


In Dream Worlds, Rosalind Williams examines the origins and moral implications of consumer society, providing a cultural history of its emergence in late nineteenth-century France.

About the Author

Rosalind H. Williams is Dean for Undergraduate Education and Metcalf Professor of Writing at MIT and author of Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations 
Acknowledgments 

1. The Implications of the Consumer Revolution 

Part One: The Development of Consumer Lifestyles 
2. The Closed World of Courtly Consumption 
3. The Dream World of Mass Consumption 
4. The Dandies and Elitist Consumption 
5. Decorative Arts Reform and Democratic Consumption 

Part Two: The Development of Critical Thought about Consumption 
6. From Luxury to Solidarity: The Quest for a Morale of the Consumer 
7. Charles Gide and the Emergence of Consumer Activism 
8. Durkheim, Tarde, and the Emergence of a Sociology of Consumption 
9. A Fragment of Future History: Beyond the Consumer Revolution 

Notes 
Selected Bibliography 
Index