Customer Reviews

The McDonaldization Thesis: Explorations and Extensions

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Ritzer has taken his popular McDonaldization theory and applied it to a host of specific topics, such as the university (and sociology in particular), the work force, leisure and other areas of life. He builds not just on his work but also on those who have taken his theory and built on it, as well as some of the masters in the social theory realm. For those who are interested in this theory, this is an invaluable addition to the body of work.

As a student in Norway, going on the course sociology, this was a great book to read. I`m going to have a review of this book at my course, in front of my professor , and the rest of my class. And i will only say good things about that book. The book contains good things about Max Weber, Karl Mannheim.

A another thing whit this book, is that Georg Ritzer is using easy words, good langue and its easy to understand.

I requment this book to all, either you are a student in sociology, or regular student. Even so if you arent a student, it is a good book to read,for to understand what is the McDonaldization thesis.

Gaute Aadnesen

This book contains a set of very nice ideas of the recent trends in the consumption of the American society. Very good study was done on the subject. I understand that this is not the first book on the subject by the authors, which makes it hard to comprehend a large number of references to the previous works. Also, the language of the book is way too "scientified".

In this second book, George Ritzer pushes his general thesis to extremes that become nearly absurd. To pretend that credit cards are a simulacra of money is true, but money is a simulacra of bartering. To reject credit cards because they are a simulacra is like rejecting the market place and that would make us go back to what ? When were commercial exchanges between people not using some tokens, some simulacra of the value of the exchanged goods ? But he even goes further : organized tourism or cruises are a simulacra of the discovery of a new territory. We can discuss the simplification such organized tourism brings, but should we go back to the old « tourism » of previous centuries and reintroduce colonialization, the genocide of encumbering populations, slavery, and some other side-effects (that were rather the direct objectives) of such adventures ? Same thing with Disneylands and other entertainment parks. They are only the development of the old fairs and festivals of previous centuries that took place on market day or on some special occasions, like carnivals and pilgrimages and some others. The only difference is that we can visit such parks all year around, and if some are intellectually limited, the number of those who go deeply into some topics are numerous, and, would I say, more and more numerous, presenting sciences, technology, history, geography, and many other topics. And the mass-basis of these make them cheap, a lot cheaper when we take into account the amount of subject matter. And we can have in a short period of time and in the same locale a tremendous amount of information that we could only have through long and tiresome research before. This leads us to the Internet. A simulacra of communication or research ? Certainly not. A new dimension of communication and research. It might be used in an underdeveloped way. But it does not have to be that and people are learning, provided schools, universities and social institutions lead them into it, incite them to do it. An interesting point of view but we must remain very alert not to be thrown into some kind of retrograde ideology. Would anyone ever think of rejecting the telephone as a simulacra of communication ? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.