Waste And Want

Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Waste and Want examines an essential but neglected part of that culture - the trash it produces - and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning. Before the twentieth century, trash was nearly nonexistent. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where everything possible was reused: scavenger pigs roamed the streets, "swill children" collected kitchen garbage, and peddlers traded manufactured goods for rags and bones. Over the last hundred years, however, Americans have become hooked on disposability, fashion, and constant technological change, and the rise of mass consumption has led to waste on a previously unimaginable scale. Lively and colorful, Waste and Want recaptures a hidden part of our social history, vividly illustrating that what we throw away defines us as much as what we keep.