Packaged Pleasures

Food, Culture & Society's Jan Whitaker considered the book "provocative" and that it "holds promise" for driving discussion into new areas in food history research, but was critical of how the authors "back away from judgement" of consumer culture and the idea of a pleasure society.^[6] Andrew P. Haley in The American Historical Review called the book "itself a packaged pleasure" that provided a "fresh account" of the history of mass production, though Haley wished the work took a stronger stance against consumerism rather than pushing away concerns over the "democratization of culture".^[8] In a review for Times Higher Education, Isabelle Szmigin stated that the book includes a "comprehensive discussion" of the history of consumer goods and that it has a methodical use of references and insight into the history of various products. But the reviewer also questions whether the general idea has a "nagging sense of elitism" that would result in calling for less developed countries to not receive the benefits of consumerization that developed countries already have and if the benefits of decreasing hunger and other problems packaged products have provided were being overlooked.^[9]

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