I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers – An Entertaining History of Acquisition, Power, and Choices Across Time

by Thomas Hine

Choosing and using objects is a primal human activity, and I Want That! is nothing less than a portrait of humanity as the species that shops. It explores the history of acquisition -- finding, choosing, spending -- from our amber-coveting Neolithic forebears to Renaissance nobles who outfitted themselves for power to twenty-first-century bargain hunters looking for a good buy on eBay. I Want That! explores the minds of shoppers in the quest to nourish and feed fantasies, to define individuality, to provide for family, and to satisfy the needs for celebration, power, and choice -- all of which lead us to malls, boutiques, websites, and superstores.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Business, Society, History

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Thomas Hine is a writer on history, culture and design. He is the author of five books, and he contributes frequently to magazines, including The Magazine Antiques, Philadelphia Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Martha Stewart Living, Architectural Record and others. He is a senior contributing writer to Home Miami and Home Fort Lauderdale.

He has been praised in the New Yorker by John Updike for his "mischievously alert sensibility, and was recently cited by House & Garden as "America's sharpest design critic." Populuxe--a word he coined as the title of his first book to describe the styles and enthusiasms of post-World War II America, has entered the language and is now included in the American Heritage and Random House dictionaries.

From 1973 until 1996, he was the architecture and design critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1977 and 1978, he was a Ford Foundation fellow, traveling in Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union and elsewhere to study the impact of rapid political change on architecture and planning.

Recently, he was guest curator of Promises of Paradise, a groundbreaking exhibition on the design of post World War II South Florida. He also was an adviser to the Orange County Museum Art on its 2007-2009 touring exhibition Birth of the Cool and wrote an essay for its highly-praised, award-winning catalogue. Earlier, he was guest curator for the Denver Art Museum touring exhibition US Design: 1975-2000. He also wrote one of the essays in its catalogue. He worked with the National Building Museum on On the Job, a 2001 exhibition and catalogue about offices, and with the Fairmount Park Art Association on its New Landmarks exhibition and catalogue, which explored a new approach to public art. In 1989, he was an advisor to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, on its exhibition, Landmarks for Modern Living, about the post World War II Case Study House program, and he contributed an essay to its prize-winning catalogue.

Other books to which he has contributed chapters include Volare(1999) and Material Man (2000),both created by the Fashion Engineering Unit of Florence Italy, and Life: A Century of Change (2000).

He has taught courses at both the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. He has lectured at Yale, Syracuse, Drexel, and Michigan State Universities; museums including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Worcester Art Museum; and to professional and trade associations including the American Institute of Architects and the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association.

He was born in suburban Boston, grew up in Connecticut, and graduated from Yale. He has lived in Philadelphia since 1970.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there was an option to give half-stars. My rating would rest soundly between two and three stars. It was okay, but it wasn't great.

Like some other reviewers here pointed out, there are no great revelations in this book. But I'm not sure that it's been marketed as some grand revelatory read. I enjoyed Hine's meditation on how the modern shopper came to be. And even though there's no central thesis, there are several themes that interested me quite a bit. The best part was the constant stream of trivia interlaced with the text, all tidbits from Hine's research for this book. Fun factoids are just awesome.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating view into the social and cultural history and meaning of shopping and objects. Light and short enough to educate while entertaining.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historical treatise on consumer acquisitive behavior. Caused me go to Walmart for the first time in over a year, the last time was April 2020 and the shelves were bare and in disarray. This time, there were pallets everywhere, in every aisle, just waiting to be unpacked. The global supply chain is clearly back in operation.

[Lainey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The lack of a cohesive thesis was frustrating, but many of his historical tidbits were interesting. Last year, I read Alexandra Lange’s “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall,” and found it to be more enjoyable and current, as well. (I read this Thomas Hine book from 2002 for a book club)

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Some interesting tidbits, but overall some pretty egregious errors and suspect theorizing.

[Talia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree that it is readable but shouldn't it be?

[Robyn White · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Kaitlyn Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a surface level read, finished on a flight from LAX to ORD. After checking the publishing year to be 2002, reading this is 2025 makes a bit more sense.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one who shops as little as possible, I went into this book expecting at least a sprinkling of anti-shopping grist. I didn't find that at all. In fact, I found the opposite. Hines asserts early on in the book that shopping is an activity in our genes. It is, at once, an expression of power; an often burdensome, yet fulfilling responsibility; and, perhaps, most importantly, an expression of freedom and identity. I expected early on that I would not enjoy reading this book.

Yet as I continued to read, I found myself really interested in the loads of historical tidbits imbued throughout. They were pretty interesting. Hines traces the roots of shopping as far back to prehistory with hunter/gatherers. He then leads us through feudalism in the Middle Ages; shopping shifting during the Renaissance; the Industrial Revolution creating a Middle Class that was, for the first time ever, a lower class able to afford luxury items. We proceed through the Age of Advertising in the late 1800's and continue through to modern day, where we are bombarded nearly 24/7 with marketing pleas to buy, buy, buy. Aside from some interesting historical facts, there is no real insight to be gained here. Although I am able to now see a different point of view regarding shopping, my position hasn't changed one bit. Truthfully, I doubt that was Hine's goal, anyway.

What I liked most was the author's style of writing. He manages to stay fairly objective, even when presenting both sides of an argument. There are also a couple of places where he injects just a hint of humor, as well. He seems like a pretty smart and cool guy.

This book won't set the world on fire or anything, but it's definitely worth a read if you enjoy social history and pieces of trivia.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like reading a book that included the influence of culture in consumer psychology. This book definitely delivered with some interesting tidbits as well.

XIV Intro: "Being a good consumer is an important part of being a grown-up in contemporary society, especially for women. ... Learning to shop is a rite of passage to contemporary adulthood."
Ch 1: "Power - the use of objects to assert authority and prove your worth" - power to choose, independence
p.5: the exchange of gifts - people establish connections and obligations among themselves
p.17: "have the right to have what you choose ... you have a right to your own regalia.:
p.18: "The things we acquire are less important than that act of acquiring."
p.77: 18th century - large & expensive pieces of furniture b/c increase in # of clothes & linens (commode/Fr & chest of drawers/Eng)
p.77: 18th c = appearance of fork
p.78: intro of coffee, tea, chocolate - rise of demand for porcelain cups, etc. b/c pewter & leather tankards holding liquid burned fingers
p.78: increase of # of clocks v. one in town square
p.78: mid 1720s = mirrors in all households b/c of concern how appear to others
p.107: websites where users frequent & browse a long time = "sticky"
p.131: the importance of the evolution of the price tag - no haggling, salesperson no longer set price of sale, shoppers avoided embarrassment of asking about an item they couldn't afford - "reduced some of the social risk of shopping"
p.145: merge objects w/ values to create a new taste

[Bill]

In his book "Populuxe" (1986), Thomas Hine provided a lively autopsy of that 1950s-60s period of huge, finned autos, Mid-Century Modern furniture and living arrangements, turquoise and pink kitchen surfaces - the postwar period when America dominated every category of manufacturing, marketing and consumption, and our economy was in high gear. Resource-wasteful in every mechanism for individual expression, and blissfully unaware of it.

"I Want That!: How We Became Shoppers" is a concise summary of how shopping evolved with human societies into an expression of self, far beyond its original purpose of staple replenishment. Hine extends his natural interest in cultural commercial behavior and tracks the development of marketing, customer service, consumer behavioralism and many of the related analytical disciplines that swim alongside markets like pilot fish beside sharks.

No controversial points or any insights that should drop a reader's jaw in astonishment - but not because the book isn't well crafted. We are all so tight with this subject just from being the consumers that we are; it is still a treat to have a familiar subject treated so well that it becomes a kind of time capsule.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Want That! is a surprisingly readable and entertaining treatise on shopping. It's a history book with humor an insight into a very basic human activity. Author Thomas Hine also explores how sales tactics and marketing emerged over time, drawing more and more shoppers into the web that is the market place.

Though it was published over a decade ago, the author is already familiar with online shopping and the invasion of privacy issues that soon follow. He also explores the economic impact of Christmas and how it has moved away from its spiritual roots to a season of shopping that has an impact on not only local, but the global economy.

Reading this book is almost like reading a sociology book. One enjoys discovering how trends in tastes emerge, affect fashions, housing, and just as quickly, render the fashionable passe' and call for something new and different.

This was one of those non-fiction book club reads that I really enjoyed...again, one I would never have picked up without a nudge from a friend. (Thanks, Jan H.!) If you see it at Half Price, its a dollar well spent!

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't read enough of it to say I read it in 2008, had some interesting parts but got repetitive and boring too often.

[Joe Otto · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sorta just skimmed that last half. Not that interesting to me. Normally I'm a fan of Thomas Hine but this book wasn't my fav.

[Mkb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, but not as good as Populuxe! It would make a nice enrichment reading for a history of ancient culture course as Hine addresses the anthropology of objects and their acquisition.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as exciting as actual shopping.