Coke adds life. Just do it. Yo quiero Taco Bell. We live in a commercial age, awash in a sea of brand names, logos, and advertising jingles -- not to mention commodities themselves. Are shoppers merely the unwitting stooges of the greedy producers who will stop at nothing to sell their wares? Are the producers' powers of persuasion so great that resistance is futile?

James Twitchell counters this assumption of the used and abused consumer with a witty and unflinching look at commercial culture, starting from the simple observation that "we are powerfully attracted to the world of goods (after all, we don't call them 'bads')." He contends that far from being forced upon us against our better judgment, "consumerism is our better judgment." Why? Because increasingly, store-bought objects are what hold us together as a society, doing the work of "birth, patina, pews, coats of arms, house, and social rank" -- previously done by religion and bloodline. We immediately understand the connotations of status and identity exemplified by the Nike swoosh, the Polo pony, the Guess? label, the DKNY logo. The commodity alone is not what we are after; rather, we actively and creatively want that logo and its signification -- the social identity it bestows upon us. As Twitchell summarizes, "Tell me what you buy, and I will tell what you are and who you want to be."

Using elements as disparate as the film The Jerk, French theorists, popular bumper stickers, and Money magazine to explore the nature and importance of advertising lingo, packaging, fashion, and "The Meaning of Self," Twitchell overturns one stodgy social myth after another. In the process he reveals the purchase and possession of things to be the self-identifying acts of modern life. Not only does the car you drive tell others who you are, it lets you know as well. The consumption of goods, according to Twitchell, provides us with tangible everyday comforts and with crucial inner security in a seemingly faithless age. That we may find our sense of self through buying material objects is among the chief indictments of contemporary culture. Twitchell, however, sees the significance of shopping. "There are no false needs." We buy more than objects, we buy meaning. For many of us, especially in our youth, Things R Us.

He makes a good case that this has been what people "really" want since time imortal. And that no amount of whining about how it isn't good for you can compete with the almighty dollar. Simply put, if you really didn't want it, you wouldn't buy it.

I do agree that he can get long winded in his arguments.

Anyone looking to start up another .com company would do well to read this first.

Second, he does not back up many of his assertions, despite a plethora of footnotes. For instance, he asserts that kitchens have gotten smaller in the last few decades (seemingly as a way of proving that we eat more take out and less home cooked food), without stating whether he means suburban or urban kitchens, new construction or remodelling, apartment, condo or detached kitchens...you get the picture. There are similarly unsupported assertions about trash disposal, landfills, and teenage buying patterns.

Finally, it was *dull*. The only parts that were even vaguely entertaining were the last few chapters, when the polemics were replaced by personal reporting of his trip to a mall. I learned very little about American materialism, and far more than I wished about the author's political biases.

A huge disappointment.