Content area
Full Text
This book is actually more than the usual. It originates from a series of lectures delivered by Colston E. Warne at Kansas State University in 1977. The lectures are divided into nine chapters that address topics of the consumer movement--some of which have not received much attention in other publications. Extensive footnotes add to the understandability and currency of the book. Dr. Morse uses the footnotes to provide context and clarity and bring the reader up to the 1990s.
Dr. Morse's Introduction, his perspective of the consumer movement, the editorial method used, a chronology of Dr. Warne's life, an extensive bibliography--over 300 entries, listings of acronyms, and a listing of the holdings of the Consumer Movement Archives at Kansas State University complete the book. Fifteen photographs and illustrations depict President Kennedy's Consumer Advisory Council, Consumers Union's activities, and consumer activism. The chronology begins in 1888 (Bellamy's Looking Backward was published) two years before Dr. Warne's birth and ends with Warne's death in 1987. It includes historical events, events relevant to the consumer movement--passage of legislation, publication of books, and founding of consumer organizations--and events in Dr. Warne' s life. The chronology is useful as the chapters are developed around topics not along a time line. Thus the chronology helps the reader to gain the perspective of the events that came before, at the same time, or after the topic at hand.
Chapter I, Ideological Foundations, explores the bases of the consumer movement. Many of the same bases contributed to Dr. Warne's ideologies. These include labor, education, cooperatives, radical economic theories,...