Customer Reviews

Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ostensibly a history of the department store in America, this book is a revelatory primer for those wishing to understand the origins and growth of the culture of comsumerism in the United States. As Leach convincingly documents, consumerism is an artificial, carefully crafted construct clearly traceable to particular people and places in our history. Their paradigm of consumption, Leach further shows, is one that has come to consume American culture in general--and, increasingly, world cultures beyond it.

I don't think I've read a better non-fiction work. The prodigious research is presented in a continuously diverting way. The evolution of Salesmanship in its many forms is explored in colorful depth: floor design, window design (Who knew that until the 1930s "all the show windows at Marshall Field's were covered on Sundays out of respect" for the founder's religiosity?), classified ads, mail-order catalogues. The paradigmatic figure of John Wanamaker is presented vividly and multi-dimensionally; anecdotal details along the way illuminate a whole period of American history I'd paid only scant attention to before. Thank you Mr. Leach, you've started a whole new reading list for me! In fact, my only criticism of the book is the lack of a bibliography. There are book (and journal and letter and interview) references among the copious footnotes, but no single list. The research Mr. Leach did is obviously staggering. How many of us have read "The Dry Goods Economist" or "The Show Window" - the latter founded and edited by L. Frank Baum -? This is a work animated by both a dedication to the highest principles of scholarship, and a passion for the subject that is (in my case at least) contagious.

I found Leach's book very insightful and interesting. He thoroughly dissects and explains the history and creation of consumer culture in the U. S. during the 1880s-1920s. Every avenue involved in consumer culture is discussed in this easy to read text.

W.R. Leach writes about the beginning of consumerism in the U.S. around 1910/20. He writes with much verve about his theme, which makes the book an ageeable read.
But for my taste the book is somewhat short on analysis. For example: there is much talk of the connection between selling and religion, but if this connection was by random or if there were some deeper links is left open.
If you are new to the subject of this book and you want an interesting read: get it. But be aware, the answers for a lot of questions this book poses are not to be found here.

Leach has written a wonderful book on the true roots of modern American society. Ever wonder why the only public meeting place extant is the shopping mall? Because "they" want it that way. Find out who they were - and are. But beware. You're probably one of them!

In William Leach's Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture the author ignores the topic of leisure by making it self-evident through consumerism. Leisure, and in turn consumerism, became actual businesses to the likes of the Straus Brothers and Marshall Field, as well as to by-products of consumer industries such as banks, hotels, and museums. Leach's book brings the nature of leisure full circle, from Veblen's Leisure Class to leisure of the working class, whose consumption boosted businesses that used working-class techniques based in the theatre and vaudeville as "showmanship" in the shop window.

I well and truly believe that consumer capitalism is the most powerful ideology created in the history of the world. I think the major world religions might give it a run: Islam and Christianity in particular, but in my mind I think consumer capitalism is pretty much it. Inveighing against consumer capitalism is useless. Ignoring it is stupid. American invented consumer capitalism, and we do it better then anyone. It's "our thing"- it's what we do.

Land of Desire by William Leach, published in 1994, is an in depth (and often boring) examination of the creation of the culture of consumer capitalism. Leach's thesis is that consumer capitalism was consciously created by urban department store owners in the period between 1880 and 1920. They promoted buying as they promoted their businesses, and they were so successful that the culture they created took root across the entire world.

Of course, we take the department store for granted today, but shops used to be cramped, dingy places, where goods were piled on top of each other and you had to ask someone to retrieve articles from tall shelves. Savvy department store owners, whom Leach profiles in great detail, realized as early as 1880 in places like New York City, and later Philadelphia and Chicago, that they could sell more stuff by making the stuff more appealing.

This meant changing how stores looked- brighter, more color, more spacious. It also meant reaching out to customers through advertising and "public relations" events. And you know what? They killed it. They won. They won so big that it's hard for a contemporary American to even imagine a world where consumer capitalism doesn't rule us with an iron fist.

What's the lesson? People want to buy stuff. They like to buy stuff that is bright and shiny, and they like to buy stuff that makes them feel smarter and more secure. Followers of consumer capitalism consume. It's what consumers do. We are all consumers.

Once you read one page of this, I guarantee you won't want to read another. In this book, William Leach goes list-crazy, where paragraphs consist of sentence after sentence of information dump only weakly held together by any general point. And, in the few times where Mr. Leach gives his own opinion, it's usually one sentence unsubstantiated drivel, like how he ended a paragraph listing the increase in pet bird and fish sales with "One can only guess at the waste and insensitivity of this traffic in living things." It would bore you to tears if I quoted a whole paragraph, but here're three sentences from page 270 which are typical of the book in general:
"From 1914 to 1926, annual sales of toilet goods at Filene's rose from $84,000 to $552,000. The yearly output of clocks and watches increased from 34 million to 84 million in ten years, making America the leading timekeeper. Electrical appliances and machines - refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, toasters, fans, stoves, and dishwashers- were the decade's gold mine commodities."
It goes on line this...and I really mean that. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, the book is little more than a collection of lists weakly tied together by a connecting sentence or two. And it's not even more than 90% irrelevant (who the hell cares about the yearly output of watches in America?), it's damn boring. I was thinking of giving this book a 2/5 rating, but on further consideration, even the small bit of information in the book that's even slightly interesting is buried in too many layers of worthless crap to even warrant the attempt to dig them out.

So, why did I even read this? Because, figuratively, I did have a gun to my head. Chapters of this book were assigned by my Modern American Economics teacher, and every Friday there would be a question sheet on the readings. Of course, when I talked to him he gave me the "I know it's unpopular with students, but there's information in here I can't get from other books" spiel, which is BS, but that's college for you. Still, it was sweet relief when he assigned sections from any other book in the world but this one.

For those without a gun to your head, don't bother, even if you're really interested in Modern Economics. Trust me, you'll find some other book with the information laid out in a more selective, interesting way, written by an author who can actually make a consistent point in a chapter. And for those who already have the book and are looking to sell it (at the time of writing, there are 30 used copies being sold on Amazon), make sure to set the book price low, because anyone with half a brain wouldn't pay more than $5 for this book unless someone's forcing them to.

This has got to be the most boring book in the world!!!! I have to read it for one of my college courses and it is very nauseating. 30 pages on the history of window decorations!! Give me a break! If you're into analyzing the advertising industry, try Social Communications in Advertising by Leiss. Its a much better book and its much more interesting!