From Tradition to Consumption is a ground breaking work that provides a wonderfully innovative and insightful explanation of the eclipse of traditional society and the rise of a new consumer culture during South Korea's recent march to economic development. The book convincingly portrays this shift to cultural modernity as the reasoned response of people to rapidly shifting forms of labor, everyday life, and state narratives. Key to this transformation from agriculture to a modern life has been the drastic alteration of the family from a unit of production to a unit of consumption.
This state-led industrialization also has redefined gender roles in Korea. The pressing needs for production and consumption to bolster economic development have resulted in the creation of a middle-class family marked by the white collar male and urban housewife. These new social roles serve to make the process of consumption central to the family, and to promote the act of consumption as the basis for modern identity for many Koreans
This book was recognized by Korea's National Academy of Sciences as a "Distinguished Academic Book" in 2002. The National Academy of Sciences is South Korea's leading and most prestigious scholarly organization and provides advices and recommendations to the government on matters pertaining to science and education policies. A selection committee of Korea's top scholars reviewed books in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences that were published in Korea in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The National Academy of Sciences will support these books by providing publishers with grants of between $10,000 and $16,000 per book. These grants will be used to help distribute the books to libraries.
