Consumption is a core issue for all disciplines studying 'culture and society'. This four-volume set covers such diverse issues as food, environment and housing in terms of society's seemingly insatiable lust for consumption.

Volume One: The Shaping of the Field includes classic and recent theoretical essays of lasting significance for the discipline and for the critique of consumer behaviour, by such influential voices such as Jean Baudrillard and Theodor Adorno.

Volume Two: Acquisition deals with how people get what they consume.

Volume Three: Appropriation draws from anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to expound on the central idea of appropriation, capturing the importance of people 'domesticating' mass-produced and alien products, converting them into items with personal meanings and using and appreciating them for their own purposes.

Volume Four: Appreciation unpacks the frameworks of understanding acceptable conduct grounded in moral and social judgments of symbolic value.