Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : Our crap, our selves -- A nation of cheap jacks. From the cheapening mania to universal cheapness ; Cheap goods in a chain store age -- Better living through gadgetry. Perpetual improvements ; Gadget mania -- Putting the free in freedom. Getting nothing for something ; The price of loyalty -- Mass-produced personal taste. Buying heritage ; Manufacturing distinction -- Commodifying connoisseurship. Collecting commemoration ; Manufacturing scarcity -- But wait, there's more. Joke's on you -- Epilogue : a world made of crap.

"Wendy Woloson considers seriously the detritus of everyday consumerist Western lives--a category that comprises objects that function as art, jokes, tools, embodiments of fantasies, cultural signifiers, status symbols, and much more; a.k.a. "crap." She seeks to use these possessions to illuminate our society, culture, and economy. Why do we--as individuals and as a culture--have these things? Where do they come from, and why do we want them? In her words, this investigation "brings together material culture, consumer culture, behavioral economics, cultural economics, the histories of industrialization, capitalism and international trade, among other disciplines." Also, there's a Lightning Sausage"--