Customer Reviews

The Theory of the Leisure Class (Oxford World's Classics)

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

 

 

An obstacle is Veblen's rather difficult writing style with long sentences and complex prose. Once you get beyond that this is a treasure that treads where few others dare to. He details the delineation of social class with both precision comprehensiveness. He straddles aspects of life such as education, dress, travel, and even the basics of aboriginal class relations.

There is nothing else like both the content and the style of this masterful book. If you want insight into class structure, especially in the US, then read this book. After about a hundred years it is still relevant.

This a Great scholarly book for anyone who is a Sociology student who might be attending a serious Junior College or University.

Even though this is a small book it is very dense and takes a bit for a first time reader on this topic to absorb.

This is a well researched book for those who wish to dig below the service of 'institutional stratification' mechanisms that rule this entire world in a 'functionalist' manner.

I almost can't believe I read 180 pages of this laugh-a-minute classic text. Here's an actual sample: "The cannon of beauty requires expression of the generic. The `novelty' due to the demands of conspicuous waste traverses this canon of beauty, in that it results in making the physiognomy of our objects of taste a congeries of idiosyncrasies; and the idiosyncrasies are, moreover, under the selective surveillance of the canon of expensiveness."

In summary, pay the extra ten bucks for the deluxe edition; it comes with sharp sticks to gouge out your eyes. On the plus side, the book is so full of bull that its torn pages make a potent fertilizer. I give it an idiosyncratic congerie of low scores.