The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. This item is unavailable.The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness

From airport terminals decorated like Starbucks to the popularity of hair dye among teenage boys, one thing is clear: we have entered the Age of Aesthetics. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work.

We expect every strip mall and city block to offer designer coffee, a copy shop with do-it-yourself graphics workstations, and a nail salon for manicures on demand. Every startup, product, or public space calls for an aesthetic touch, which gives us more choices, and more responsibility. By now, we all rely on style to express identity. And aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes.

In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel shows that the "look and feel" of people, places, and things are more important than we think. Aesthetic pleasure taps deep human instincts and is essential for creativity and growth. Drawing from fields as diverse as fashion, real estate, politics, design, and economics, Postrel deftly chronicles our culture’s aesthetic imperative and argues persuasively that it is a vital component of a healthy, forward-looking society.

Intelligent, incisive, and thought provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now.

"Marvelously informative.Brightly argued.Even when Postrel's examples are familiar, the specifics can be eye-popping..It's groundbreaking." -- Atlantic Monthly

"A profoundly important book. The topic is absurdly under-studied; and Postrel has turned in a magnificent performance."--Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

"A brilliant analysis ... After reading The Substance of Style, the world will literally look different to you."--Steven Pinker, Professor, MIT, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

"[Postrel] connects a million seemingly disparate dots into a fresh, clear-eyed, persuasive picture of our culture circa 2003."--Kurt Andersen, author of Turn of the Century

"What a great read! It will heighten your awareness of our newly sculpted aesthetic world."--Karim Rashid, designer

"Provocative. . . demolishes the false dichotomy between substance and style."--Washington Post Book World

"Virginia Postrel . . . writes perceptively about everything on which her penetrating gaze alights."--George F. Will, Washington Post

"A work vast in its range, profound in its depth, rich in its detail."--Robert Venturi, architect

"Marvelously informative...Brightly argued...Even when Postrel's examples are familiar, the specifics can be eye-popping....It's groundbreaking."--Atlantic Monthly

A brilliant analysis ... After reading The Substance of Style, the world will literally look different to you. --Steven Pinker, Professor, MIT, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate"