The Great American Bus Ride - Softcover

Kurtz, Irma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857021851 ISBN 13: 9781857021851

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 1994

Synopsis

This lucid introduction to the sociology of consumerism examines the relationship between production and consumption in late capitalist societies. The historical and theoretical discussion provides the student with the tools to examine key themes in the sociology of consumption. After a detailed historical overview of the advent of consumer society, Peter Corrigan examines theoretical accounts of consumption and consumer practice, including: Veblen and conspicuous consumption; Mary Douglas on the world of goods; Jean Baudrillard on the system of objects; and Pierre Bourdieu on cultural capital. This historical and theoretical discussion provides the student with the tools to examine key themes in the sociology of consumption.

About this title

About the Author

Irma Kurtz writes a regular column for Cosmopolitan. Her most recent books are ‘Dear London’ and ‘The Great American Bus Ride’. She was born in Jersey City, and is a graduate of Columbia University.

From the Back Cover

”The truth is, I am a hussy of low appetites who yearns shamelessly for rough travel…Greyhound and I were made for each other.”

After more than thirty years as an expatriate, Irma Kurtz gave in to her growing curiosity about her American roots and set off on a grand adventure to explore ‘the most baffling of all places’ – by Greyhound bus. Taking only the barest necessities for travel, she entered the vast network of America’s bus routes and a seething, fleeting world of brief encounters and changing landscapes.

During the great loops of her journey back and forth across the continent, Kurtz was as fascinated by the people thrown up at random on each bus as by the places flashing by outside the window. She creates a vivid and highly entertaining portrait of America reflected in the hundreds of characters she observes fromthe close quarters of the bus. Feeling herself becoming ‘invisible’ as she passes into middle age, she senses a wonderful new freedom to watch and record other people.

This is America caught unawares, in the no-man’s-land between bus stations: a more truthful picture of it than we have come to expect, from a woman looking coolly at the truth about herself.

Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857021851
• ISBN 13: 9781857021851
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208