Placing.com's intellectual grandaddy
The hallmark of modern culture: we are defined by the consumer choices we make. It's the only way an emergent middle-class, deprived of the crutch of heredity, can continually assert its power: the world of "the new black" and "this season's" whatever. Bourdieu charts the development of "taste" as an index of social distinction, from its origins in the colonial expansion of late 17th century Europe, and provides lots of meaty data to describe the workings of cultural distinction in the present day.
Rating: 9/10