The end of the 19th century saw the invention and the elaboration in the United States of the society of consumption. This phenomenon, which has rapidly spread throughout the world, is not the result of some natural evolution which is both regular and inescapable, but that of an eventful history whose principal actors were conquering companies and audacious contractors waging combats without mercy in order to impose a new conception of their activity. This look at a century of economic development in America proposes an original analysis of modern marketing. Through the detailed account of the great commercial battles - those involving Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, Ford and General Motors, A & P and Sears & Roebuck ... - the author shows us how the politics of marketing evolved : the strategic choices, the technologies or infrastuctures involved and the existing regulations.The ambition of Richard Tedlow is double : to help the reader understand how this major revolution in modern economy was possible in the space of just a hundred years, and to sketch the future of our society of consumption at a time when the accelerated development of information technologies announces yet another new phase in the history of marketing.

Richard Tedlow is a professor at Harvard Business School and has long been Editor-in-Chief of the famous Business History Review.