New York Times Book Review
"Dream Worlds makes a genuine contribution to understanding how hopes and desires came to be invested in goods."
Chandra Mukerji, Contemporary Sociology
"By reading the sociology of Durkheim and Tarde as a gauge of the power of consumerism in the period, Williams illuminates the motives of sociological theorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Extremely beneficial for sociologists."
Book Description
In Dream Worlds, Rosalind Williams examines the origins and moral implications of consumer society, providing a cultural history of its emergence in late nineteenth-century France.
About the author
Rosalind H. Williams is Dean for Undergraduate Education and Metcalf Professor of Writing at MIT and author of Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination.
