ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the importance of consumerism, not just as an outcome of the centralizing forces of production and the development of an increasingly alienated workforce, but because of the ways in which the myriad interactions between consumers and goods shaped political, social, technological, and ideological spheres. Archaeologists and other social scientists draw an important distinction between consumerism and consumption. The organization of labor, the development of technology for manufacturing and distributing goods, and the acts of desiring or rejecting, shopping or choosing not to shop, saving or discarding, are all parts of the ideology of consumerism that essentially constitutes the bond between people and the objects that they produce, use, and discard. More recently, archaeologists have sought to elevate the material world from a position subservient to culture and give it agentive power.
