The Dialectic of Taste: On the Rise and Fall of Tuscanization and other Crises in the Aesthetic Economy [Hardcover]

The Dialectic of Taste examines the aesthetic economy in the context of economic crises. It explains how a new concern for aesthetics, seen in artisan markets, was born out of the ashes of McDonaldization to become a potent force today, capable of both regulating social identity and sparking social change.

1. Introduction: What ' 's at Stake in Taste
2. The Aesthetic Economy
3. Abstract Taste and the Crisis of Value
4. The Allegory of Tuscany
5. Conclusion

David Michalski is the Social and Cultural Studies Librarian at the University of California, Davis, USA.