Getting Loose

“Getting Loose is a work of historical sociology that both draws on and challenges central theoretical perspectives on consumption and consumer culture, identity, postmodernism and late modernity, post-Fordism, and contemporary moral culture through exceptionally creative analyses of 1970s lifestyle philosophies and practices.”—Don Slater, author of Consumer Culture and Modernity

“Getting Loose is an important and quite interesting study of the discourses of the 1970s lifestyle movement. It casts a whole new light not only on that epoch but, more importantly, on its relationship to contemporary self, identity, and the economy, especially consumer culture. Sam Binkley moves comfortably and insightfully between the most abstract of social theories and the most prosaic of social phenomena, using the former to offer new insights into the latter. He presents a panoramic view of the movement from the 1970s era of the loosening of the self to the reality of the early twenty-first century, where ‘we’re all loose now.’”—George Ritzer, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, and founding editor, Journal of Consumer Culture

“[O]ne of the greatest strengths of Getting Loose is its ability to animate the seemingly vague notion of ‘loosening’ in its attention to the specifics of these texts. Perhaps the greatest insight offered is the transformation of the counter-culturally inspired loose life-style into the commercialized mainstream. . . . Binkley’s insights are original and compelling.”

“With nearly 600 bibliographic entries, Getting Loose is among the most thorough studies of its kind.The book surveys the period in American society when 1960s counterculture developed into the consumer lifestyles we know today. But Binkley does more than simply mark the transition from yippie to yuppy. He shows how the emancipatory impulses of rebellion helped usher in the new world order of unrestrained global capital.”