ABSTRACT
The Introduction lays the groundwork of the research on the rise of consumer capitalism in America between 1880 and 1930. It presents both the theoretical and the methodological framework of the book: how the object of the research has been identified and defined and the way it has been investigated. In the first section, the concept of consumer capitalism is set forth in light of the literature studying consumption and the consumer society. It is argued that a proper assessment of its contemporary significance would greatly benefit from the study of its historical emergence, which research has increasingly located in America at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. In the second section, through a reexamination of Weber’s mode of questioning, a genealogy of consumer capitalism is outlined. This genealogy relies on the concept of liminality and related concepts like imitation, image-making and theatricalization, and it is the central core for the rest of the book. It is suggested that such genealogical analysis offers a promising research strategy to properly address the rise of consumer capitalism without resorting to one-sided explanations along the ‘structure-agency’ or ‘material-ideal’ divides. Finally, a brief presentation of the structure of the book closes the Introduction.
