Consumer Research

Book excerpt: Once again, Morris B. Holbrook has combined insightful commentary on the field of consumer behavior with a readable and enjoyable writing style. A must read for anyone interested in the latest thinking in the field. Ron Hill, Professor and Chair of Marketing, Villanova University "A delightfully idiosyncratic history of consumer research. What enthralled readers will get from his stylish exposition is a socio-psychocultural description of the consumer through the ages, along with a description of attempts to understand the consumer. Scholarly yet readable, Holbrook′s history is a classic study of consumerism too. Editor′s Choice." --Business Today In recent years, consumer research has emerged as an academic specialty of growing concern to marketing scholars and of increased importance on today′s university campuses. Courses on consumer behavior--taught in virtually every academic program of business or management--draw heavily on work by consumer researchers. Despite this wide and growing recognition as an emergent area of study, no book appears to exist on the history, nature, and types of consumer research or on the variegated and often hotly debated issues that surround this field of inquiry. Consumer Research fills this gap by providing an account of the recent historical developments in consumer research and by showing how the evolution of this discipline has affected the research. The author offers a personal and subjective glance at how various changes in the field have come about and how they have shaped studies of consumption. Marketing scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates concentrating in marketing will find Consumer Research irresistible reading.