"In this book, Rachel Bowlby looks at some of the turning points of twentieth-century consumer history: when department stores gave way to supermarkets; when packaging made everyday things into objects of desire; when self-service created a close, new relationship between shoppers and merchandise.

Carried Away looks at arguments about chocolate boxes and bars of soap, at modernist shop windows and supermarket shelves, at Stepford Wives and Rupert Bears - at the many extraordinary ways that modern shopping and shoppers have been imagined and invented."--BOOK JACKET.