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All Consuming [Paperback]

Neal Lawson (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: 25 Jun 2009

'Stabbing at battle of Ikea' Sun

'Most expensive house has £390m price tag' Daily Telegraph

'Financier runs up £36,000 bar bill' Independent

Diamond-encrusted phones, waiting lists for handbags, 7-star hotels - in the summer of 2007, the UK economy finally reached its giddy peak. But it wasn't just celebrities and bankers wanting to spend, spend, spend. Whipping out our cheap credit cards, the whole nation developed one obsessive, unsustainable habit: shopping.

Now the cash has dried up and we've consumed our way to financial disaster. But were rich times really happy times? And if shopping got us in to this mess, should we really be encouraged to shop our way out of it?

With finances in flux, now is our chance to break this all-consuming cycle. Offering everyday ways to start kicking the habit, Neal Lawson shows us how to put the basket down for good, and why we'll be happier for it.

Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (25 Jun 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141029412
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141029412
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.6 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 411,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

About the Author

Neal Lawson is a political commentator. In between time spent shopping and thinking about shopping he writes regularly for the Guardian and the New Statesman and often appears on the radio and television. He was formerly an adviser to Gordon Brown and before that was a trade union researcher. He is chair of the fast-growing pressure group Compass and managing editor of the policy journal Renewal. In 2001 he co-edited The Progress Century (Palgrave).
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Turbo-capitalism, a personal and political indictment 12 July 2009
By Mr. M. H. Dewey
Format:Paperback
I read this book in a day and found it totally absorbing. In its criticism of consumerist culture, it covers similar ground to Oliver James's "Affluenza" Richard Layard's, "Happiness" and Richard Wilkinson's work on inequality. In its discussion of personal solutions it refers to the "Idleness" project of Tom Hodgkinson. In the discussion of political solutions Neal Lawson reveals himself as the democratic collectivist Chair of Compass, the Labour based but Greenish leaning pressure group. You don't have to agree with all his recommendations to enjoy the book. Having read it, it's difficult to disagree with his contention that the solution to our current economic, environmental and existential problems will involve embracing "less" rather than "more".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting but a little Condescending 1 Jun 2011
By M. Kearney
Format:Paperback
As someone who is enthralled by the subject of excessive consumption, I was very intrigued by this book. The premise seems simple enough; to study what went wrong with society, how it happened, how to fix it, and what's the alternative. The book delivers with vast amounts of usable and interesting facts, figures and knowledge. But the way in which the author has written the book grates on me, and it becomes more of an issue towards the end.

The book starts out very strong and contains lots of interesting facts and figures, and makes reference to many of the oft referenced examples of excessive consumption (tulip-mania etc) , however, when the book moves onto `what went wrong' and `how to fix it', the author begins to come off as quite condescending, as if we've all been turbo consuming as he has had to sit back helpless to stop it. At times the author is also hypocritical, a prime example of this is his scorn for green house pollution caused by cars, yet proudly announces that he drives a VW van because he believes himself to be "hippie", when in fact it is well known that older vehicles are much more polluting than their modern counterparts. By the end of the book it feels like a political manifesto for the green party.

However, in spite of these flaws I still give this book 4 stars, as the information contained within it is shocking, entertaining, disturbing and accurate. It holds a mirror up to the uncontrolled buying of modern Britain and this makes for a fascinating read. You may find your interest tailing off towards the end of the book, but even then the book is still worth a read for what came beforehand.

All in all, the premise of this book is a very good one, and it contains a vast amount of interesting information. I just can't help but feeling it could have been written in a slightly different style. But then again, I'm not a published author...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but needs more context 2 Sep 2009
By Eugene Noel
Format:Paperback
In an eminently readable and absorbing style, Lawson hammers home his message of "Turbo-consumption" as civilization-destroying and "less is more". His analysis of the psychology of advertising and consumption is particularly adroit. While it may be true, as other reviewers have noted, that he adds little to the existing literature on the subject. coming in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the thirties and emphasizing the way corporate advertising has twisted our psyches and manipulated us into buying more than we can afford, his book has a particularly timely message. His argument, however, also merits better contextualizing.

Lawson is a top figure in Compass, which is doing its best to wean the Labour Party from Blairite neoliberalism. To do so, and to encourage a more rational and humane pattern of consumption, he needs a broader historical and theoretical base than he presents in All Consuming. His six or seven pages on the economic history leading up to Turbo-consumption (from the ancient world to the present!) are too thin to support his extended presentation of the mammoth credit orgy in the last twenty years, and, consequently, to explain why the political action he desires will not be achievable without massive commitment from groups and individuals.

In short, while Lawson's laudable list of alternatives runs the gamut from personal transformation to government action - taxes, redistribution, renewal of social legislation, curbs on advertising - the book's argument needs supplementing from the field of political economy: a clear analysis of why we have, in Europe and North America as well as the UK that is his principal focus, been turned into turbo-consumers, rather than producers.

A second edition of this fine book would benefit by a chapter dealing with the political eoonomy and history of globalization and an explanation of how and why expanding world production and advertising-enforced consumption collided with the ecological limits to our planetary existence to create the double economic and climate crisis we are now undergoing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Read this book and make some changes.
I found All Consuming to be an extremely readable account of the problems a society runs into when consumption is the order of the day to the exclusion of everything else. Read more
Published on 17 Nov 2009 by Thrifty Chick
3.0 out of 5 stars A socialist solution to turbo-consumerism
All Consuming is a book that I found very easy to read. It puts a very strong - albeit extremely one-sided argument for changing society to solve the problems caused by turbo... Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2009 by Kevin McIlroy
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
An excellent and timely book. Very thought provoking. A must-read for anyone who has ever felt 'there must be a better way than this'.
Published on 11 Aug 2009 by Mr. N. R. Foster
2.0 out of 5 stars Start by not buying this book!
I haven't finished this yet but my blood is boiling and it doesn't look like the book is going to get any better in the next few pages so I'll capture my thoughts for you the... Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2009 by Roger D. Hyam
5.0 out of 5 stars Yes - you should buy a book that suggests we stop shopping!
Every other page I found myself exclaiming (some times not so silently).. 'exactly!'. From the desperate sight of Boxing Day Sales to the ridiculousness of 'upgrades' on unbroken... Read more
Published on 3 Aug 2009 by Craig Ritchie
3.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking
The book is an interesting read. It is very thought provoking, challenging many day to day activities which we just take for granted. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2009 by Austin Hicks
5.0 out of 5 stars As a turbo-consumer, you can't afford not to read this
You knew that there was something wrong with the UK which is why you go to France and Italy for your holidays. It isn't just the sun, is it ? Read more
Published on 14 July 2009 by A. Gilchrist
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