Satsifaction Guaranteed

This well-researched and documented history of goods-and-customer interaction since the days of bartering is also a delightful overview of American shopping customs from 19th-century Main Street to today's malls. Early in the 20th century, Strasser shows, advertising of national brandsquotes unnec.?/unnec.gs launched products creating their own demand--safety razors, cameras, fountain pens (with attendant consumption of blades, film, etc.)--thus gradually displacing networks of generic manufacturers whose sales ``drummers'' fanned across America by rail and buggy. The development of department stores such as Macy's, mail-order giants like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, grocery chains foreshadowing supermarkets, ``aids'' like premiums, displays and trading stamps and the skyrocket successes of Coca-Cola and Wrigley's gum are only a fraction of the sweeping story, as the author of Never Done brings into focus major social and economic forces linked to our daily lives. (Nov.)