This systematic and authoritative book provides an unrivalled guide to understanding ad culture. It shows how the logic of commodities permeates the ways we think about ourselves, our relationships and our desires. Richly illustrated and written with great clarity, it will be essential reading for anyone interested in ad culture.

Robert Goldman is Associate Professor of Sociology at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon.

List of illustrations, Acknowledgements, 1. Subjectivity in a Bottle: Commodity Form and Advertising Form, 2. Advertising and the Production of Commodity Signs, 3. The Mortise and the Frame: Reification and Advertising Form, 4. Legitimation Ads: The Story of the Family and how it Saved Capitalism from Itself, 5. Commodity Feminism, 6. This is not an Ad, 7. Levi's 501s and the `Knowing Wink': Commodity Bricolage, 8. The Postmodernism that Failed, References