ABSTRACT
There are two major contributions that make this a particularly important volume. The first is the way it helps us rethink our sense of what Israel is and the second the way it helps us rethink our sense of what consumption is. All of which makes this a very timely book indeed. It forces all its readers to engage at a much more grounded level with people’s lives. The focus on consumption necessarily forces us to address these mundane and everyday issues of how people live their lives, how they get by on a day-to-day level as individuals, households, families, and groups. Consumption isn’t and never was that which is claimed by the discourse upon consumption. It certainly has the capacity to create what the discourse claims, that is, an individualistic, competitive, materialistic society.
