Book: Paperback | 129 x 198mm | 416 pages | ISBN 9780140187953 | 16 Feb 1994 | Penguin Classics | 18 - AND UP
With exquisite irony, Veblen, the "best critic of America that America has produced" (C. Wright Mills), lays bare the hollowness of our canons of taste and culture.
'#A# short, bizarre, brilliant book' - Adam Gopnick
The Theory of the Leisure Class - Thorstein Veblen
Introduction by Robert Lekachman
Preface
Chapter I: Introductory
Chapter II: Pecuniary Emulation
Chapter III: Conspicuous Leisure
Chapter IV: Conspicuous Consumption
Chapter V: The Pecuniary Standards of Living
Chapter VI: Pecuniary Canons of Taste
Chapter VII: Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture
Chapter VIII: Industrial Exemption and Conservatism
Chapter IX: The Conservation of Archaic Traits
Chapter X: Modern Survivals of Prowess
Chapter XI: The Belief in Luck
Chapter XII: Devout Observances
Chapter XIII: Survivals of the Non-Invidious Interest
Chapter XIV: The Higher Learning as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture