Absorbing and incisive, Land of Desire tells the story of a fundamental transformation in the culture and economy of America - the rise of mass-market consumerism and the attendant shift to a society 'preoccupied with consumption, with comfort and bodily well-being, with luxury, spending, and acquisition, with more goods this year than last, more next year than this.' Tracing the rise of American mass-market culture from its beginnings in the 1890s, William Leach reveals how pioneering and visionary merchant princes - John Wanamaker, the Straus brothers, Marshall Field, and A.T. Stewart - constructed the modern department store business and lured millions of buyers with remarkable feats of showmanship. Wow Slider With Crack. Spectacular displays with dazzling light and color effects and marching bands and bugle corps were part of the pageantry employed to entice Americans into the pleasure of consumption and indulgence. Famous architects and stage designers were enlisted to create the proper atmosphere, and they became part of a complex network of relationships involving banks, hotels, churches, museums, universities, and government that helped these merchants, in effect, create and disseminate a new mentality predicated on acquisition and consumption as a means of achieving happiness.

A fascinating tale of American business, one that is particularly resonant amid the undertow of today's staggering trade deficits and retail bankruptcies, Land of Desire raises some disturbing questions about how the work ethic of an earlier America was superseded by a new consumer culture that came to dominate, reshape, and ultimately define America. Rating: (not yet rated) Subjects • • • • More like this • •. Find more information about: ISBN: 505 OCLC Number: 26929898 Awards: Herbert Hoover Book Award, 1993.

William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants. Culture by William R. Leach in pdf format, then you have come on to the right website. We furnish the. [William Leach] Land of Desire eBook by William R. Leach - Read Land of Desire Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture by William R. Mbot Silkroad on this page. Leach with Kobo. This monumental work of cultural history was nominated for - Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a.

Description: xvii, 510 pages: illustrations; 25 cm Contents: Introduction: The Land of Desire and the Culture of Consumer Capitalism -- I. Strategies of Enticement.

The Dawn of a Commercial Empire. Facades of Color, Glass, and Light. Fashion and the Indispensable Thing. Ali Baba's Lamp: Service for Private and Public Benefit -- II. Arabian Nights Scripts on this page. Circuits of Power.

'Business Runs the World': Institutional Coalitions Behind the New Order. Wanamaker's Simple Life and the Moral Failure of Established Religion. Mind Cure and the Happiness Machine -- III. Managing a Dream Culture: 1922-1932.

'An Age of Consolidation': Goods, Money, and Mergermania. 'Sell Them Their Dreams' 11. The Spectacles.

Herbert Hoover's Emerald City and Managerial Government -- Conclusion: Legacies. Responsibility: William Leach. Absorbing and incisive, Land of Desire tells the story of a fundamental transformation in the culture and economy of America - the rise of mass-market consumerism and the attendant shift to a society 'preoccupied with consumption, with comfort and bodily well-being, with luxury, spending, and acquisition, with more goods this year than last, more next year than this.' Tracing the rise of American mass-market culture from its beginnings in the 1890s, William Leach reveals how pioneering and visionary merchant princes - John Wanamaker, the Straus brothers, Marshall Field, and A.T. Stewart - constructed the modern department store business and lured millions of buyers with remarkable feats of showmanship. Spectacular displays with dazzling light and color effects and marching bands and bugle corps were part of the pageantry employed to entice Americans into the pleasure of consumption and indulgence.

Famous architects and stage designers were enlisted to create the proper atmosphere, and they became part of a complex network of relationships involving banks, hotels, churches, museums, universities, and government that helped these merchants, in effect, create and disseminate a new mentality predicated on acquisition and consumption as a means of achieving happiness. A fascinating tale of American business, one that is particularly resonant amid the undertow of today's staggering trade deficits and retail bankruptcies, Land of Desire raises some disturbing questions about how the work ethic of an earlier America was superseded by a new consumer culture that came to dominate, reshape, and ultimately define America.