Enchanting a Disenchanted World

George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, where he has also been a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and won a Teaching Excellence Award. He was awarded the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award by the American Sociological Association, an honorary doctorate from LaTrobe University in Australia, and the Robin Williams Lectureship from the Eastern Sociological Society. His best-known work, The McDonaldization of Society (8th ed.), has been read by hundreds of thousands of students over two decades and translated into over a dozen languages. Ritzer is also the editor of McDonaldization: The Reader; and author of other works of critical sociology related to the McDonaldization thesis, including Enchanting a Disenchanted World, The Globalization of Nothing, Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society, as well as a series best-selling social theory textbooks and Globalization: A Basic Text. He is the Editor of the Encyclopedia of Social Theory (2 vols.), the Encyclopedia of Sociology (11 vols.; 2nd edition forthcoming), the Encyclopedia of Globalization (5 vols.), and is Founding Editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture. In 2016 he will publish the second edition of Essentials of Sociology with SAGE.

• 1. A Tour of the New Means of Consumption2. The Revolution in Consumption and the Larger Society3. Social Theory and the New Means of Consumption4. Rationalization, Enchantment, and Disenchantment5. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Extravaganzas and Simulations6. Reenchantment: Creating Spectacle Through Implosion, Time, and Space7. Landscapes of Consumption8. The Cathedrals (and Landscapes) of Consumption: Continuity and Change

I have used Ritzer′s Enchanting a Disenchanted World for perhaps 4 years now. I use it for three reasons: 1) it demonstrates Marx, Weber, and Baudriallrd so that students see theorizing being done; 2) it imaginatively and cogently addresses an issue with which we are all familiar; 3) it shows sociology′s critical potential and capacity. Brad Breems