released 3/1/2001

Historian Gary Cross, author of An All-Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America (Columbia University Press, 2002), argues that Americans are uniquely susceptible to the temptation to define ourselves by what we buy, given that we are a young, diverse society that lacks a pre-modern tradition of understanding ourselves as a people. As advertisers have long known, we tend to use products to construct our identities. Cross explains how limitations on advertising were slowly and subtly eroded, particularly by radio and then television, to the point where we now see nothing morally wrong with commercials aimed at children. Our culture of convenience shopping and around-the-clock, targeted advertising forms us while exacting costs with which we may not have reckoned. This interview was originally published on Volume 48 of the Journal.

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