This volume casts a critical eye on representations and practices of consumption in the Western world. It offers a unique contemporary perspective on the themes of counter-consumerism, ecological crisis and sustainability that are rising fast on the political and cultural agenda.

SAM BINKLEY is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Emerson College, Boston, USA
SIMON BLANCHARD is Senior Lecturer in Democracy and Media in the School of Cultural Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
MARIUS DE GEUS is Senior Lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands
RICHARD KERRIDGE is Head of Postgraduate Studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, UK
JO LITTLER is Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University, London, UK
MARTIN RYLE is Reader in the Centre for Continuing Education and the English Department at the University of Sussex, UK
ROBERTA SASSATELLI is Associate Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Milan, Italy
GILL SEYFANG is a Research Councils UK Academic Fellow in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK
JULIET SOLOMON works in Transport Research and Consultancy at the London Metropolitan University, UK
KATE SOPER is Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations at London Metropolitan University, UK
LYN THOMAS is Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of European Transformations at London Metropolitan University, UK

Introduction Kate Soper PART I: Texts and Representations Representing Consumers; R. Sassatelli The Past, the Future and the Golden Age; M.Ryle Ecochic: Contemporary Lifestyle Magazines; L.Thomas Mediated Culture and Exemptionalism; S.Blanchard PART II: Value, hedonism, critique The BohemianHabitus; S.Binkley Sustainable Hedonism; Mde Geus Green Pleasures; R.Kerridge PART III: Everyday consumption Happiness and the Consumption of Mobility; J.Solomon Gendering Anti-Consumerism; J.Littler Growing Sustainable Consumption Communities; G.Seyfang PART IV: Conclusion Conclusion; M.Ryle, K.Soper & L.Thomas