SociologyVol.35,No.2,pp.583–596.Printed in the United Kingdom © 2001 BSA Publications Limited books reviewed Metaphysics: Concept and Problems Theodor W. Adorno Cambridge:Polity Press,2000,£45.00,ix+214 pp.(ISBN 0-7456-2275-5) The works ofTheodor Adorno have had a mixed reception in academic circles in Britain.His analysis ofthe ‘culture industry’is often dismissed as both productivist and elitist and therefore irrelevant to the study ofcontemporary forms ofcultural experience.This is in contrast to a largely ‘positive’evaluation ofhis anti-foundationalist stance on the constitution ofknowledge and a renewed interest in his work on aesthetics. This volume oflectures brings together Adorno’s thoughts on metaphysics and culture in post-war Germany.Adorno regularly developed lecture courses in the 1960s to think through work in progress.These lectures provide the thought processes that contributed to the final section of Negative Dialectis,to many his finest work.As such they provide a valuable insight into the creative thought processes ofthis most famous ofdialectical thinkers.They do more than this though.They also demonstrate the moral and intellectual dilemma that Adorno found himselfin a post-Auschwitz world in which a ‘resurrected culture’,which importantly includes philosophical speculation,‘was rehashing its traditional values oftruth,beauty and goodness as ifnothing had happened’(p.119).In part these lectures meditate on the meaning ofAdorno’s famous claim that after Auschwitz it was impossible to write poetry. The lectures begin,somewhat dauntingly,with questioning the nature and meaning of metaphysics in culture.Adorno takes the unusual stance that it was Aristotle,and not Plato,who was the first true metaphysician.For those ofus who know ofPlato’s simile ofthe cave in which he discounts the empirical world in favour ofthe ‘forms’,the metaphysically real,this comes as a surprise.But Adorno’s point is that Plato divides these two realms in such a way that there is no meeting place,no mediation between them.Whereas Aristotle poses the question ‘ofhow one is to conceive the mediation between the world ofideas and the world ofsensible objects’(p.33). Aristotle thus becomes the first theorist to take seriously the relation between the empirical world and the world ofideas.Adorno’s underlying interest in Aristotle is,however,guided by problems in his own thought.Ifphilosophical thought is also social thought and ifit is embedded in the transitory and the historical,then how can it develop categories that are universal? For Adorno the universal is also necessarily the ideological,yet he does not wish to throw the baby out with the bath water.Rather he argues that thought ‘is able constantly to think beyond itselfand its limits,to think through the walls ofits glasshouse.And this thinking beyond itself,into openness–that, precisely,is metaphysics’(p.68).How,then is one to think ofthe metaphysical in the world today without falling prey to ideology? Adorno recounts a recurring dream in which he feels he is no longer alive but merely the ‘emanation ofa wish ofsome victim ofAuschwitz’(p.110).To merely exist ‘one is taking away that possibility from someone else,to whom life has been denied;that one is stealing that person’s life … And ifone does live on,one has,in a sense,been statistically lucky at the expense ofthose who have fallen victim to the mechanism ofannihilation and,one must fear,will still fall victim to it’ (p.113). Adorno poses the dilemma ofa survivor,but also,to extrapolate,ofthe ‘haves’rather than the ‘have nots’.The realm ofculture becomes a realm offorgetting.He recounts an experience he had 583 584 Books Reviewed as a child as he watches a dogcatcher’s van drive past,‘one knew what was the most important thing ofall,that was what really mattered,the zone ofthe carcass and the knacker’(p.117). Which brings me to Adorno’s statement on the writing ofpoetry.It goes hand in hand with the imperative to write poetry whilst there is still suffering as an ‘objective form ofthat awareness’ (p.110).To write or not to write is not a question ofeither/or.For Adorno the antimony lies in the nature ofthe world and not his thought.This translation is excellent and the footnotes provided by RolfTiedemann are exemplary. University ofSussex MICHAELBULL Paul Virilio: From Modernism to Hypermodernism and Beyond John Armitage (ed.) London:Sage Publications,2000,£49.50 (£15.99 pbk),245 pp.(ISBN 0-7619-59020-5 hdbk) Apart from notable exceptions such as Deleuze and Guattari’s Nomadology(1986) and Kroker’s The Possessed Individual(1992),the work ofPaul Virilio has been under-explored in social theory. As such,this collection is a welcome contribution to the study ofthe French ‘philosopher ofspeed’. Armitage’s introductory chapter shows how Virilio’s ‘dromology’relates to the Second World War and in particular the understanding ofwar as speed.For Virilio,the equation ofwar and speed illuminates not only the total violence which characterises late-modern war,but also the tyranny that occupies the heart ofmodern progress. Following his early idealisation ofarchitecture as a space which could be adapted to allow greater freedom,Leach allows one to see how Virilio’s later work has concentrated on the negative effects ofpost-modern geography.Similarly,McQuire’s contribution to the collection shows how Virilio’s notion ofthe city as a mobile construction is related to the thesis that high speed has led to the disappearance ofany collective vision ofsocial reality.For McQuire,this idea suggests that the city as social space collapses into the screen,the pure surface which acts as a plane for highly individuated forms ofcommunication.McQuire illuminates Virilio’s own contribution to the collection by showing how the theory ofthe end ofsocial space is related to the concept oflight- speed.Virilio argues that due to the invention ofnew forms ofcommunication which approach the speed oflight (such as live television transmissions),geographical space has collapsed and been replaced by the non-space ofthe visual display. The related effect ofthe collapse ofspace is the end ofmovement,or what Virilio calls inertia. With regard to this,Gane’s essay compares Virilio’s idea ofvirtualisation and Baudrillard’s theory ofsimulation.He points out that the difference between Virilio and Baudrillard is that the former attempts to save the category ofsocial reality,while the latter collapses the distinction between reality and simulation.Against Baudrillard’s notion ofhyper-reality,Virilio is able to maintain a concept ofthe phenomenological body by asserting a theory oftechnological stratification.Those located at the centre ofthe technocratic society have access to the high-speed virtual sphere,while those on the periphery are confined to the province oflow-speed actuality,the domain where the phenomenological relation still forms an effective bond. For Kellner this insistence on the preservation ofcorporeal integrity neglects the democratic potential offered by new technological forms.Similarly,Cubitt claims that Virilio’s binary construction (subject/object) overlooks the fact that technology mediates between subjects and advances the construction ofthe communicative body.Cubitt views communication technology Books Reviewed 585 as an emancipatory form which suggests the end ofmonadic subjectivity.Zurbrugg’s chapter, which debates the merits ofStelarc’s technological experimentation,allows one to consider Cubitt’s position from a different perspective.According to Zurbrugg,one may see Stelarc as a techno-versucher,whose work with machines advances new forms ofhuman/non-human interaction,or agree with Virilio and consider his philosophy as characteristic ofthe Nietzschean hubris which increasingly dominates the high-speed sector oflate-modern capital. Against authors like Derrida,whose relation to Virilio is explored by Crogan’s excellent contribution,Virilio is suspicious ofthe emancipatory effects suggested by new techno/textual augmentation.His theory ofthe technological colonisation ofthe body argues that the virtual benefits ofthe machinic add-on obscure the actual subordination ofhuman concerns to technological progress.This point,which is central to Armitage’s interview with Virilio,is also considered by Conley and Der Derian.While Conley stands against cyber-feminism by arguing that there is little room to re-think identity through technology,Der Derian maintains that we must save critical thought and steer clear ofan unthinking celebration oftechnological development. Staffordshire University MARKFEATHERSTONE In Search of Politics Zygmunt Bauman Cambridge:Polity Press,1999,£45.00 (£13.99 pbk) viii+203 pp.(ISBN 0-745-62172-4 hdbk) Bauman’s persistant theme,summarised in the phrase ‘individuals have become monads’,is that of the loss ofcommunity and sense ofcollective agency through the effects ofindividualisation and consumerism,which isolate rather than emancipate persons.He therefore adds to an extensive and developing critical tradition in sociology recently developed by writers such as Berger, Habermas,Lasch and Bellah.Bauman contributes to this tradition the location ofcurrent private dissatisfactions and impoverishment ofthe social sphere (in a particular view ofthe tensions between modernity and postmodernity),together with the emergence ofchronic insecurity,that emphasises the changing role ofintellectuals. Contemporary Western culture,Bauman argues,confronts a tension between the twin beliefs, first,that human freedom is real and legitimate and,secondly,that the world is beyond human control.Consequently,increasing personal freedom develops together with an increasing sense of personal insecurity.Politics,which could be a collective forum,is the preserve ofprofessionals immunised from the privatised concerns ofindividuals.Consequently,popular movements of political solidarity arise around shared fears and enmities,ofwhich,according to Bauman,the current paedophile-related panic is typical. Modernity’s promise to maximise human freedom by extending control over the natural world has been undermined both by the impermanence ofthe indicators ofself-identity (family, work,nation) and by the global expansion ofcapital.This latter transcends national-based political structures,which,through their endorsement ofstrategies ofprivatisation and de- regulation,declare their irrelevance.Power lies in the capacity to create insecurity for others;a sense of‘crisis’is normal.This is the new form ofcontrol–overt,repressive control is largely reserved for ‘failed consumers’whose existence warns consumers ofthe uncertainties oflife.The creation oftransnational political structures to parallel economic globalisation weakens the significance ofnational indicators ofpersonal identity whilst further removing the political 586 Books Reviewed process from personal concerns.Popular culture reacts by identifying those areas that individuals feel can be controlled (such as body shape) whilst creating demonised representatives of uncontrollable forces (such as criminals or immigrants). Whereas true social autonomy would recognise the human origins ofinstitutions,political decisions are presented as inevitabilities brought about by forces outside human control (for example,the market).The apparently uncontrolled nature ofinevitable change means that individuals are deprived ofthe certainties ofboth tradition and progress.However,according to Bauman,critical reflection,on which human autonomy depends,must deny that there are any certain foundations for either social order or personal identity.Therefore,those who traditionally engaged in critical reflection–the intellectuals–cannot reconcile their diversity ofpersonal interests and have become just another competing status group. Bauman looks to republicanism,representing persons as citizens,to provide an effective response to these new times.But participation in public affairs depends upon security.Hence the latter part ofthis book is a qualified defence ofa ‘basic minimum income strategy’.This seems to be a very narrow issue on which to focus the preceding sweeping discussion ofthe interaction between personal concerns and global problems.Bauman admits that this strategy would be no more than a start,and that it may have self-refuting consequences ifappropriate ideological and institutional supports were absent.Nevertheless,this is the one extensive consideration ofa particular issue within a discussion that,however invigorating,relies on sweeping generalisations with barely a nod to empirical support other than quotes from sympathetic writers.Even with Bauman’s caveats,it sidesteps the issues raised at the outset concerning the isolation ofconsuming individuals and the absence ofpublic discourse. Bauman’s thesis is accessible,persuasive and vividly presented.It is dominated by rhetoric and extended metaphor rather than argument and evidence,but it flows with ideas and passion. This is consistent with Bauman’s apparent aim ofevoking,or even provoking,the reader to respond.Thus,it reads like a manifesto even though its practical recommendations are few.This book could be utilised as a research programme for sociology (for instance,for identifying the extent and social location ofexperiences and attitudes that Bauman presents as typical).This may be to trivialise Bauman’s goals,for he wishes to engage in a public debate.However,despite the frequency with which Bauman asserts that ‘we’know or experience this or that–which sits awkwardly with his depiction ofcontemporary selves as privatised–it seems possible that he has universalised the peculiar concerns ofliberal,Western professional intellectuals. University ofAberdeen CHRISWRIGHT Picture windows: How the Suburbs Happened Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen New York:Basic Books,2000,£18.95,xxii+298 pp.(ISBN 0-465-07045-0) It is not sufficient to take a look through the picture window (a typical feature of1950s suburban houses) and see only the bored housewife,the anonymous commuter or the Joneses to keep up with.Rather,as Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen show in Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened,this look should be far more wide-ranging.It could,for instance,study suburbia’s complex past and present. Books Reviewed 587 Drawing on a mixture ofsociology,economics,politics,cultural studies and urban planning, combined with both a diversity ofarchival resources and personal interviews,the authors try to undo the stereotype ofthe suburb as a fixed and timeless ‘no-place dominated by a culture of conformity and consumption’(p.xv).They relate both the development ofand the lives in the suburbs ofLong Island with broader American issues.Picture Windowsis chronologically structured,from Hearst’s turn-of-the-century Gold Coast to contemporary decentralised technoburbs,with an emphasis on three reoccurring and interconnected issues or themes. The first major theme focuses on the ongoing conflict between the private and the public as concepts that are tightly intertwined with contrasting ideas about American democracy.American housing debates have traditionally been embedded within discourses that present housing either as a civic right that should be protected by governmental (financial and regulatory) intervention or as an issue for free private enterprise that should not have to compete with public funding. Baxandall and Ewen clearly show how these two discourses have continuously shaped,yet have also been challenged by,mass-scale housing discussions.These discussions ran from the New Deal (in which publicly funded housing was seen as a key factor for economic and social recovery) through Senator McCarthy’s prejudiced committee directed against ‘communist’public housing to the current unwillingness to build affordable homes for new immigrants.It is the still dominant free-market ideology that,as the authors suggest,set offpost-war suburban building but also helps silence the idea ofhousing as an issue ofdemocracy. The second theme ofPicture Windowsconcerns the relation between aesthetic and socio- political ideas and developments.In the book,this topic mainly surfaces at moments ofsuburban history when architects,urban theorists and planners become involved in discussions on mass- scale housing.However,this theme becomes much stronger when it is related to innovations in technology,construction and marketing,the need for cheap housing and private investments.It explains how,in the 1940s,the possibility ofmass-produced prefabricated single dwellings,with their built-in consumer goods,not only became the standard for the suburbs but also for the ‘new middle-class style oflife’(p.133). The ‘dream ofinclusive democracy and prosperity’(p.xxii) is the last significant theme ofthe book.Good housing is here taken as a sign ofsocial equality and integration.This is lucidly illustrated when the authors draw upon the relationship between the rise ofthe suburbs and the reconfiguration ofclass distinctions,for example in terms ofhome ownership.The continuing struggles against the racial and ethnic homogeneity ofmay suburbs is also rightly stressed in the book.Perhaps more importantly,Baxandall and Ewen suggest that such changing positions have had lasting consequences for American society and its citizens. By cleverly intertwining the above themes with a historical perspective and counter-intuitive accounts ofsuburbanites,about how their dynamic communities are lived and constructed, Picture Windowsconvinces in its plea to understand suburbia in plural rather than in singular terms.However,contrary to the authors’claim,this is by no means the first study showing the dynamics ofmulti-layered suburbia.They prefer to tell the suburban story in a narrative, informative form bereft ofreferences to or discussion ofthis previous work.These exclusions mean that aspects ofsuburban development here remain unexplained or underdetermined. Similarly,crucial concepts like citizenship and community are used within rather fixed definitions,whereas the book suggests that housing issues can challenge such categories.They really deserve a more critical analysis,especially since the authors do not otherwise shy away from the complexity ofsuburbia. That said,the strength ofPicture Windowsis in its multidisciplinary approach which enables mass-scale housing to be linked with American history in a way that foregrounds the need to mutually conceptualise changes in society and suburbia.As such Baxandall and Ewen have written 588 Books Reviewed an extremely readable book that is ofinterest to various fields both within and outside of sociology. Brunel University MARIKEVANHARSKAMP Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place Andy Bennett London:Macmillan,2000,£15.99 pbk,viii+223 pp.(ISBN 0-333-73229-4) This is an interesting book and a welcome addition to the sociology ofpopular music.In the past the topic has suffered from a lack ofmainstream sociological texts,and this book is to be applauded for adding to this growing area. Bennett’s aims are simple ‘I … view the local as a contested rather than a fixed space–the cultural significance I attach to music being its role in the construction ofparticular narratives of the local’(p.2).However,the first thing that strikes you about this two-part text is that it has been turned into a book from a doctoral thesis.There are always problems in doing this,not least that the focus is always narrow and designed to meet a specified goal,and this text is no exception. Yet this is not a major criticism as the first three chapters,which make up Part I,do provide the reader with a breathtaking overview at break-neck speed oftheories regarding youth culture and popular music study over the last fifty years.For example,Chapter 1 deals with aspects ofstyle and young people that predate the fascination with the period after the Second World War.This differentiates youth and subcultures but says little about music per se.The chapter,like the whole ofPart I,appears to be trying to cover too much:lifestyles,resistance,critique ofthe Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies,subcultures,race. Chapter 2,for example,is an attempt to ‘critically assess some ofthe theoretical approaches … in the related fields ofsociology,cultural and media studies’(p.35).In it we move swiftly from Adorno and Benjamin to the contested nature ofpopular music to audience reception to subcultures.This is the difficulty in turning a thesis into a book,we seem to flirt with many avenues ofthought,yet ‘critique’none in any depth.It is only in Chapter 3,‘The Significance of Locality’,that we get to the focus ofthe book. Part I provides students with a compact history,but in doing so it poses more questions than it answers.Perhaps focusing on one or two theories/perspectives as they relate to space/place and locality (the theme ofthe book) would have helped.The real interest lies in the case studies. Once we begin Part II the book becomes a real feast ofdetail.Bennett deals with four different musical styles and forms oflocality in separate chapters:dance,bhangra,rap and tribute bands. What would have been helpful here would be a restatement ofthe themes for analysis,as we tend to get lost in the detail ofthe cases. One particularly useful theory foregrounded is the tribe metaphor.This was particularly useful for understanding the communitarian process ofan eclectic dance music scene,where differentiated followers ofsubgenres all come together with traditional,historical and chart-based music to form ‘identities without boundaries’.This idea that individuals appropriate parts ofall genres to construct their identities is a timely one.A few more quotes from the ethnographic study would have complimented this approach and illustrated the different individual perspectives.The chapter on bhangra was at its best in describing the way Asian youth splits into ‘communities within communities’(p.118).Illustrating how the local is always global,Bennett states such Books Reviewed 589 separations are based on cultural as well as religious grounds (p.120).The remaining two chapters on rap and tribute bands/venues deal with other aspects ofthe local.And this is where the reader can feel slightly deflated. Each ofthe case study chapters deal in great depth with issues oflocality in relation to the separate pieces ofresearch,and for that alone they are worth the read.However,Bennett does not then bring these separate analyses together to show us the threads that permeate throughout this idea ofmusic,locality and identity.For example,we do not find out how the ‘familial’atmosphere constructed by the tribute band in its venues is replicated or at least differs from that in the Asian bhangra events. To be a useful teaching aid this book needs a chapter drawing out the themes and constructing a way ofviewing the local in this age ofglobal cultural resources.Bennett hints at these in all the case studies,but they need to be made explicit for students.It is not until the conclusion that we see use ofthe global as a form ofpossible explanation for the events delineated in the case studies,by which time we have run out oftext. It is an openly written text and,the above reservations aside,taken individually,different chapters will be useful as resources for students wanting a telescoped history ofmusic or in-depth case studies ofthe four different genres.For this alone,I feel this book will be ofuse to students trying to understand what is at present a poorly defined area ofstudy. University ofLeicester GRANTCOATES Citizenship and Migration: Globalisation and the politics of belonging Stephen Castles and Alastair Davidson London:Macmillan,2000,£14.99 pbk,xiii+258 pp.(ISBN 0-333-64310-0) Stephen Castles is one ofthe foremost authorities on international migration and has sketched out most ofthe themes elaborated in this co-authored book in his earlier work,in particular The Age of Migration,with Mark Miller (1998) and Ethnicity and Globalisation(2000).The latter contains an important programmatic statement ofCastles’s views,in a chapter entitled ‘Citizenship and the Other in the Age ofMigration’.This joint publication reflects a balanced division oflabour with Alastair Davidson and deals with an impressively broad range ofthemes.In Chapter 1 the authors note the contradiction between the nation-state and nationality as guarantors ofeffective citizenship and the onward rush ofglobalisation in generating new forms ofemergent global citizenship.Castles and Davidson firmly align themselves to the cause ofpost-national citizenship.As they argue,‘citizenship should be a political community without any claim to common cultural identity’(p.25).The remainder ofthe book is an attempt to chart what the emergent forms ofglobal citizenship might entail. Chapter 2 reviews the literature on citizenship,while Chapter 3 outlines the principal tendencies in international migration in the post-war period,including the formation ofsocially excluded ethnic minorities in the countries ofreception.The powerful conclusion ofthis chapter goes to the heart ofthe matter when the authors ask,‘How can the Other become a citizen when subjected to a whole gamut ofexclusionary practices?’(p.83).The nation-state and citizenship have been predicated upon a concept ofinclusion within the national community that excludes 590 Books Reviewed the Other (both internally and at its borders).Given that ethnic minorities are now ‘here for good’ how are they to be incorporated as citizens with equal rights? Chapters 4 and 5 develop this theme by outlining the divergent norms governing citizenship and naturalisation in the core states ofEurope and North America.A situation ofcomplex civic stratification is outlined by the authors,with differential modes ofinclusion and exclusion operating in different states and within particular regional blocs,such as the European Union (EU).As the authors point out,European citizenship and the emergence ofa European public space are the ‘other side’ofthe exclusion ofthe extra-communitari,the asylum seekers and ‘illegals’.Equally,for settled ethnic minorities,the acquisition ofcivic,social and political rights is no guarantee offull equality as citizens.Continuing discrimination impedes full citizenship. Chapter 6 outlines the construction ofethnic identities,with a stress on the multiple and transnational nature ofpolitical and social networks amongst ethnic minorities. The remainder ofthe book is an elaboration on these themes.Regional blocs,such as the EU, are again singled out for the potential they offer for a post-national model ofcitizenship.In a concluding chapter entitled ‘Social Capital and the New Civics’,the authors argue for a regional form ofcitizenship based upon tolerance,mildness and trust in our relations with the Other.The universality ofhuman rights and global citizenship are counterposed to the chaos unleashed by contemporary economic globalisation,particularly in the least developed regions ofthe globe. The issues raised by the book are undoubtedly ofgreat significance.Unfortunately,the breadth ofcoverage means that some areas are treated in an overly schematic manner.There is also an unnecessary repetition ofmaterial that is widely available elsewhere,while more recent debates around multiculturalism barely receive a mention.There is no reference,for example,to Charles Taylor’s seminal discussion ofmulticulturalism and recognition,which is precisely set within the framework ofinternational migration and the emergence ofdiasporic groups with powerful homeland attachments.The authors’recourse to the concept ofsocial capital and the virtues of social solidarity is also problematic given the theory’s doubtful pedigree in management discourse and practice.These issues aside,this book is to be recommended to the general reader interested in the implications ofinternational migration for citizenship.To scholars active in the field it provides a useful summary ofthe key debates and a solid basis for future research. Oxford Brookes University DAVIDGRIFFITHS The Consumer Society Reader Martyn J. Lee (ed.) Oxford:Blackwell,2000,£55.00 (£15.99 pbk),xxvi+325 pp.(ISBN 0-631-20797-X) and 0-631-20798-8 pbk) Fifteen years ago,sociological studies ofconsumption and consumer cultures were comparatively thin on the ground.Now,the density ofpublished material makes Martyn Lee’s reader of ‘contemporary and classic literature’an invaluable route guide and travelling companion to the field.Lee has selected twenty-eight key readings from twenty-six authors (Karl Marx and Jean Baudrillard share the honour offeaturing twice).Each appears with an impressively briefeditorial abstract.They tend to comprise unexpurgated essay–or article–length extracts.Lee’s introduction to the whole volume is primarily devoted to linking together summaries ofeach reading into an identifiable intellectual narrative. Books Reviewed 591 The readings are divided into two parts:‘Theoretical and conceptual foundations’and ‘The character ofconsumer society’.The former is pretty much self-explanatory,but Lee has shaped the section through focusing on the interrelations between both economy and culture and production and consumption.Readings on desire,sexuality and gender are notably absent.With apologies for a list-like summary,the selections concentrate on:questions ofcommodification and value (Marx on use value and exchange value and Baudrillard on sign-value);the introduction ofcultural processes into analyses ofconsumption (with Campbell critiquing economists’accounts,Veblen on status and the leisure class,Douglas and Isherwood on consumption and symbolic communication,Bourdieu on distinction and cultural capital,and Featherstone on cultural intermediaries);and relations between production and consumption (Miller on commodity biographies and consumption as recontextualisation,Hebdige on the cultural biographies of Italian scooters,and de Certeau on spatial strategies and tactics). The second section ofreadings follows through these concerns,adds a few others–for example on urban space,and on transitions between capitalist regimes ofaccumulation–and is organised into a roughly chronological order by subject matter.To resort to a list again,the readings here are principally focused on:the historical contextualisation ofconsumer cultures (including Slater’s retrospective excavation ofthe birth ofconsumer society,Aglietta on Fordism, and Harvey on theorising post-Fordism);the production ofconsumption through the ideological operations ofadvertising and marketing (Ewen on advertising agencies in the United States in the 1920s,Galbraith on the social production ofneeds and wants,Packard on ideologies ofgrowth as good,Baudrillard on brands,Haug on packaging,Leiss et al.on historical trends in Canadian adverts,and Wernick on the general promotional quality ofconsumer society);the attractions and positive possibilities ofconsumption (Cross on consumer culture in the 1930s Depression,Mort on shifting progressive politics away from anti-consumerism,Fiske on ‘semiotic democracy’);and consequent worries about over-romanticising consumption (from Clarke and McGuigan in particular,and also apparent in Zukin’s reflections on the social transformations wrought by changes in US retailing and urban public space). This summary should have already conveyed what a valuable student resource this volume is. Through a focus on classic papers rather than themes or disciplinary approaches,it complements other single-authored reviews and edited collections.My review copy has certainly disappeared from my office with alarming regularity since I received it a month ago.It would be unfair to be too critical ofthe predictability ofthe readings collected here–after all,their known importance is,I suspect,precisely why I have had such trouble keeping possession ofmy copy–or too demanding about omissions–as Lee himselfstates in his preface,no anthology can cover everything. However,I do think two points ofcriticism might be made.First,the volume is somewhat under- edited.Lee’s chapter summaries are wonderfully short,but the introduction sticks too close to the readings for my taste;there are no further readings suggested,something that would have been invaluable in letting students explore examples ofthese readings’empirical application and development;and no glossary ofkey terms is provided.The production quality is adequate,but minimal–no illustrations,then,not even for readings that used them to great effect in their original form (for example,Hebdige’s scooters). Secondly,at numerous points in the volume the quixotic character ofany search for thetheory oftheconsumer society is suggested.And yet noting that problem is as far as this reader goes.It stays,for me at least,too close to the generality,singularity and territoriality ofits title,and conveys too little ofhow consumer studies in the last decade have moved beyond the consumer society imaginary.The focus is on,then,a singular consumer society,implicitly located in North America and Europe (no readings explicitly mention anywhere else).The global geographies of modern consumption,and the many different possible conceptual approaches to these,may be 592 Books Reviewed signalled as central questions by Lee in his introduction,but they then disappear completely.Not only that,but one also gets little sense ofhow,to plagiarise John Urry,the sociology of consumption might be moved beyond not just a singular consumer society but also the imaginary ofsocieties per sethrough parallel work on global flows ofcommodities and local spaces of consumption.This reader does not fashion new agendas or indeed seek to highlight those emerging in consumption studies over the last decade.Its quality,and its usefulness to students, stems from its lucid and unfussy presentation ofa set ofreadings that are likely to be launch pads for most social scientific courses on consumption. Royal Holloway,University ofLondon PHILIPCRANG Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siècle Kate More and Stephen Whittle (eds.) London and New York:Cassell,1999,£16.99 (pbk),x+309 pp.(ISBN 0-304-33777-3; 0-304-33776-5 pbk). Reclaiming Gendersexemplifies a growing trend towards transsexual-authored analyses of transsexualism.As such,this text is ofnotable value to transgender,sexuality and gender studies. While most books in this area emanate from the United States,Reclaiming Gendersfocuses specifically on transsexual issues within the United Kingdom.The aim ofthe book is to analyse three central issues concerning contemporary transsexuality:the processes by which individuals become transsexual,how these processes in turn influence transsexual politics within gender theory and civil rights movements,and how transsexualism might inform future understandings ofgender and sexuality. Part I includes four chapters on Female-to-Male (FTM) transsexuality.Given the general paucity ofFTM studies the editors are clearly attempting to rectify the hitherto general invisibility ofFTM transsexuals.As a co-founding member ofPress For Change,Whittle is keen to reveal the issues and contradictions inherent in the British legal system as it currently struggles to incorporate transsexuality within sex-discrimination legislation withoutaddressing key gender issues on which the law is founded.Cromwell’s chapter on historical accounts ofFTM transsexualism draws from his recent book Transmen and FTMs(1999).The aim ofthe chapter is to render visible the mechanisms by which FTM individuals have been made invisible through incorporation into lesbian history.Stryker’s biography ofLouis Sullivan continues the focus on FTM transsexuality.Given the ostensible focus on British transsexualism,we must assume that Sullivan’s inclusion here (he was born in Milwaukee and moved to San Francisco) reiterates the paucity ofFTM narratives.One ofthe founders ofFTM transsexual activism in the United States, Sullivan’s detailed autobiography ofhis transition to being a gay male particularly challenges conceptions ofthe interrelationship between gender (identification) and sexuality (desire). Prosser’s chapter explores transsexual narrative as literal and metaphoric travelogues that both propel and facilitate the notion oftranssexualism as a journey ofcoming-into-being through narrative.Prosser delves much more deeply into the processes oftranssexual narrative in Second Skins(1999). Part II moves towards a politics oftranssexualism,focusing on several thorny issues within transgender theory,including visibility,HIV activism,inclusion and exclusion.Green details the dilemma ofa community whose ‘success’is defined in terms ofits ability to render itselfinvisible.