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Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash Paperback – September 1, 2000

by Susan Strasser (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 57 ratings
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An unprecedented look at that most commonplace act of everyday life-throwing things out-and how it has transformed American society.

Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Here she turns to an essential but neglected part of that culture-the trash it produces-and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning.

Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, almost everything was reused. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where scavenger pigs roamed the streets, swill children collected kitchen garbage, and itinerant peddlers traded manufactured goods for rags and bones. Over the last hundred years, however, Americans have become hooked on convenience, disposability, fashion, and constant technological change-the rise of mass consumption has led to waste on a previously unimaginable scale.

Lively and colorful, Waste and Want recaptures a hidden part of our social history, vividly illustrating that what counts as trash depends on who's counting, and that what we throw away defines us as much as what we keep.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Holt Paperbacks
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.81 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0805065121
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0805065121
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Strasser retrieves what history discards: the taken-for-granted minutiae of the everyday life of ordinary people.” ―Naomi Bliven, The New Yorker

"Susan Strasser reads our American history in our tea leaves―and countless tons of other domestic garbage―as she traces the changing meanings of waste and thrift from Colonial times to the present." ―The Boston Globe

"Shows to startling effect how radically both our notions of trash and our means of coping with it have altered over the years." ―Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"Strasser is a superb researcher." ―The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Susan Strasser is the author of the award-winning Never Done: A History of American Housework, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market and Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Nation. A professor of history at the University of Delaware, she lives near Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Holt Paperbacks; First Edition (September 1, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805065121
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805065121
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.81 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 57 ratings

About the author

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Susan Strasser

Susan Strasser

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Susan Strasser, Richards Professor Emerita of American History at the University of Delaware, has been praised by the New Yorker for "retrieving what history discards: the taken-for-granted minutiae of everyday life." Never Done: A History of American Housework (1982) won the Sierra Prize of the Western Association of Women Historians; Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (1999) was awarded the Abel Wolman Award from the Public Works Historical Society. She is currently working on A Historical Herbal, a history of the culture and commerce of medicinal herbs in the United States.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
57 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Happy Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book, and I learned a ton!
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021
Verified Purchase
I absolutely adored this book. While it may seem to focus on the history of trash, it was so fascinating for many different reasons! It has the environmental sustainability perspective, but not so much that it was overwhelming or ignored other aspects of the history. While reading i ended up researching tons of repair techniques that have been falling out of use, female authors, old companies and their business models, political figures i had never known about outside of their major political accomplishments, the impacts of war and economic events on a societal and individual level, and so much more. This book has so much to offer beyond what I expected. In fact, I had to take a week to digest and research each chapter before I was fully satisfied and could move on the the next section. Of course, you don’t have to take as much time as I did or even do that much research, but I felt that it really brought this book to life.
5 people found this helpful
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California Gal
5.0 out of 5 stars Why We Waste and What We Can Do About It
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2015
Verified Purchase
Anyone looking to understand WHY we waste in our current day and age need look no further than this exceptionally well researched and written social history of trash. Totally captivating to me who admittedly hates to waste, but I'm sure of interest to a broad swath of consumers who enjoy history and insights into our modern lifestyles. I garnered many insights for WeHateToWaste.com, a global community that I manage, about what worked in the past and why to incentivize people to reduce waste or to collect it for economic purposes, and how these same strategies might be updated for the future.
3 people found this helpful
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Belle Mere
3.0 out of 5 stars A Miss
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
Verified Purchase
I liked the first chapter about reworking clothing to extend its life. It was fascinating to think of women doing all of this work by hand! And then....
each chapter got longer and more bogged down with endless and repetitive details. Clearly the author did a massive amount of research, but why wasn't it edited? It wasn't quite scholarly, but it had way too much dry factual information to be entertaining.
One person found this helpful
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A Field Geologist
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading - and Enlightening.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2015
Verified Purchase
As a guy who works in the environmental field (I am a geologist) I found this book absolutely fascinating. It reveals things about life in the past that I could never have imagined. Recycling is NOT new...its old. We just abandoned the practice after WWII and became a throw-away society.
9 people found this helpful
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appleton schneider
5.0 out of 5 stars Waste not, but now wanting almost results in it just to make room . . . . .
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2014
Verified Purchase
The extent of research is impressive. And the presentation is expressive, not just factual.
A great book that gives us a perspective of the past, and by juxtaposition, a penetrating
look at what the present means re. our values and our environment.
4 people found this helpful
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Jo
5.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting read
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2015
Verified Purchase
A really interesting read that explains how we got to where we are today with regards to our trash. It was fascinating to learn how industrialisation has changed how we relate to trash.
3 people found this helpful
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Ricochet252
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
Seems like the level of detail got to the point of saying the same thing, just worded differently.
3 people found this helpful
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Mr Pisces
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic read about the social history of Recycling.
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2013
Verified Purchase
This is a great book which I have lent to more people than other book I can remember. If you are big on recycling, you be fascinated by all of the stories about recycling.
2 people found this helpful
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