Packaged Pleasures

Author : Gary S. Cross
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226121275
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Packaged Pleasures written by Gary S. Cross and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the candy bar to the cigarette, records to roller coasters, a technological revolution during the last quarter of the nineteenth century precipitated a colossal shift in human consumption and sensual experience. Food, drink, and many other consumer goods came to be mass-produced, bottled, canned, condensed, and distilled, unleashing new and intensified surges of pleasure, delight, thrill—and addiction. In Packaged Pleasures, Gary S. Cross and Robert N. Proctor delve into an uncharted chapter of American history, shedding new light on the origins of modern consumer culture and how technologies have transformed human sensory experience. In the space of only a few decades, junk foods, cigarettes, movies, recorded sound, and thrill rides brought about a revolution in what it means to taste, smell, see, hear, and touch. New techniques of boxing, labeling, and tubing gave consumers virtually unlimited access to pleasures they could simply unwrap and enjoy. Manufacturers generated a seemingly endless stream of sugar-filled, high-fat foods that were delicious but detrimental to health. Mechanically rolled cigarettes entered the market and quickly addicted millions. And many other packaged pleasures dulled or displaced natural and social delights. Yet many of these same new technologies also offered convenient and effective medicines, unprecedented opportunities to enjoy music and the visual arts, and more hygienic, varied, and nutritious food and drink. For better or for worse, sensation became mechanized, commercialized, and, to a large extent, democratized by being made cheap and accessible. Cross and Proctor have delivered an ingeniously constructed history of consumerism and consumer technology that will make us all rethink some of our favorite things.

Author : Samuel C. Florman
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0312141041
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1994 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where engineering plays an increasingly important role, one wonders about the exact nature of the engineering experience in our time. In this second edition of The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman perceptively explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. Dispelling the myth that engineering is cold and passionless, Florman celebrates it as something vital and alive. He views engineering as a response to some of our deepest impulses, rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the "antitechnology" stance, Florman brilliantly emerges with a practical, creative, and fun philosophy of engineering that boasts his pride in his craft.

Author : Henry A. Giroux
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135216525
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Disturbing Pleasures written by Henry A. Giroux and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Disturbing Pleasures Henry Giroux demonstrates how his well-known theories of education, critical pedagogy and popular culture can be put to use in the classroom and in other cultural settings. Adding an entirely new dimension to his thinking about the cultural sites at which pedagogical practice takes place, Giroux illustrates how professors, school teachers and other cultural workers can appropriate what he refers to as a "pedagogy of cultural studies."

Author : Karmen MacKendrick
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438411588
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Counterpleasures written by Karmen MacKendrick and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1999-05-06 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Counterpleasures takes up a series of literary and physical pleasures that do not appear to be pleasurable, ranging from saintly asceticism to Sadean narrative to leathersex. Each is placed in its cultural context to unfold a history of transgressive pleasure and to argue for the value and power of such pleasures as resistant to more totalizing forms of power.

Author : David T. Courtwright
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674239253
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Age of Addiction written by David T. Courtwright and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating history of corporate America’s efforts to shape our habits and desires.” —Sean Illing, Vox “[A] compulsively readable book about bad habits becoming big business...In crisp and playful prose and with plenty of needed humor, Courtwright has written a fascinating history of what we like and why we like it, from the first taste of beer in the ancient Middle East to opioids in West Virginia.” —American Conservative “A sweeping, ambitious account of the evolution of addiction...This bold, thought-provoking synthesis will appeal to fans of ‘big history’ in the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel.” —Publishers Weekly “A mind-blowing tour de force that unwraps the myriad objects of addiction that surround us daily...This intelligent, incisive, and sometimes grimly entertaining book will become the standard work on the subject.” —Rod Phillips, author of Alcohol: A History We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are deliberately hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously rewire our brains? A renowned expert on addiction, David Courtwright reveals how global enterprises have both created and catered to our addictions. The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of what he calls “limbic capitalism,” the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for feeling, motivation, and long-term memory.

Author : Robert E. Ornstein
Publisher : Sterling Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9780201523850
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.5X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Healthy Pleasures written by Robert E. Ornstein and published by Sterling Publishing Company. This book was released on 1990-01-22 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores ways to extend our lives as we enrich them, by understanding the role of pleasure in our health.

Author : Paula Bennett
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134715269
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Solitary Pleasures written by Paula Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solitary Pleasures is the first anthology to address masturbation, exploring both the history and artistic representation of autoeroticism. Masturbation today enjoys a highly equivocal and contradictory status among cultural discourses relating to sexuality. On the one hand, it is the subject of much popular treatment, especially in sexual self-help books, advice columns, and in pop culture--for example, Madonna's "Like a Virgin" performance, a recent Roseanne episode, and David Russell's movie Spanking the Monkey. On the other hand, masturbation is still a taboo subject for most people in everyday conversation. Perhaps more surprising, it has been largely dismissed by academics as a trivial, humorous topic and the "history of a delusion." It was not until the eighteenth century that "onanism" was portrayed as a morbid act of epidemic proportions that produced pox, hair loss, blindness, insanity, impotence and a horrible. Its prevention and treatment warranted diverse and often cruel measures: surveillance, diets, drugs, corsets, electrical alarms, urethral cauterization, clitoridectomy, and labial sewing. This literature's apocalyptic warnings about the personal and social morbidity of "pollution-by-the-hand" are largely unknown to most people today, but the ghostly echoes of these admonitions still inform and preserve the present taboo of the subject. Why did this apparently innocuous activity become so overpoweringly stigmatized? Why was the eradication of masturbation one of the most important goals of 19th century public hygiene? Why, even after the "sexual revolution," is masturbation still shrouded in shame?

Author : Laurell K. Hamilton
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101146389
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Guilty Pleasures written by Laurell K. Hamilton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-09-24 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that “blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache”(Diana Gabaldon). Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling series has captured readers’ wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other... Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy... “What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.”—USA Today

Author : Irene Smit
Publisher : Workman Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 1523502142
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Tiny Book of Tiny Pleasures written by Irene Smit and published by Workman Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A perfect gift book filled with whimsical, colorful illustrations, short lists, cheerful prompts, recipes, and fun facts, The Tiny Book of Tiny Pleasures is the sweetest reminder imaginable that it’s the little things in life that make us happy. Little things like sharing tea with a friend. An ice cream cone with sprinkles. Finding a forgotten item of clothing in the closet. The smell in the air right after a summer rain. Created by the editors of Flow magazine, The Tiny Book of Tiny Pleasures is a celebration of slowing down and appreciating the simple moments of life—all you have to do is take notice.

Author : Tricia Starks
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501765752
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cigarettes and Soviets written by Tricia Starks and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enriched by color reproductions of tobacco advertisements, packs, and anti-smoking propaganda, Cigarettes and Soviets provides a comprehensive study of the Soviet tobacco habit. Tricia Starks examines how the Soviets maintained the first mass smoking society in the world while simultaneously fighting it. The book is at once a study of Soviet tobacco deeply enmeshed in its social, political, and cultural context and an exploration of the global experience of the tobacco epidemic. Starks examines the Soviet antipathy to tobacco yet capitulation to market; the development of innovative cessation techniques and clinics and the late entry into global anti-tobacco work; the seeming lack of cultural stimuli alongside massive use; and the expansion of smoking without the conventional prompts of capitalist markets. She tells the story of Philip Morris's "Mission to Moscow" campaign for the Soviet market, the triumph of the quintessential capitalist product—the cigarette—in a communist system, and the successes and failures of the world's first national antismoking campaign. The interplay of male habits and health against largely female tobacco producers and medical professionals adds a gendered dimension. Smoking developed, continued, and grew in the Soviet Union without mass production, intensive advertising, seductive industrial design, or product ubiquity. The Soviets were early to condemn tobacco, and yet, by the end of the twentieth century Russians smoked more heavily than most most other nations in the world. Cigarettes and Soviets challenges interpretations of how tobacco use rose in the past and what leads to mass use today.