Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture
By (Author) Ellen Ruppel Shell
Penguin Putnam Inc
Penguin USA
29th June 2010
United States
General
Non Fiction
Economics
381.3
Paperback
320
Width 140mm, Height 216mm
255g
From shuttered factories to look-alike high streets and shopping centres, the Western world has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low prices. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of today - the engine of globalisation, outsourcing, planned obsolescence and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world. In this myth-shattering, closely reasoned and exhaustively reported investigation, Shell exposes the astronomically high cost of living 'cheap'.
Ellen Ruppel Shell is a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Time, Discover, Seed, and dozens of other national publications. She is the author, most recently, of The Hungry Gene, which was published in six languages, and is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Knight Center for Science and Medical Journalism at Boston University.