{"title":"Laurie Essig","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"love-inc-book-laurie-essig-9780520300491","title":"Love, Inc.","description":"The notion of “happily ever after” has been ingrained in many of us since childhood—meet someone, date, have the big white wedding, and enjoy your well-deserved future. But why do we buy into this idea? Is love really all we need?     Author Laurie Essig invites us to flip this concept of romance on its head and see it for what it really is—an ideology that we desperately cling to as a way to cope with the fact that we believe we cannot control or affect the societal, economic, and political structures around us. From climate change to nuclear war, white nationalism to the worship of wealth and conspicuous consumption—as the future becomes seemingly less secure, Americans turn away from the public sphere and find shelter in the private. Essig argues that when we do this, we allow romance to blind us to the real work that needs to be done—building global movements that inspire a change in government policies to address economic and social inequality.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49924315775249,"sku":"CIN0520300491G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002947010833,"sku":"NIN9780520300491","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51455874826513,"sku":"CIN0520300491VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51459561062673,"sku":"GOR014288028","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53521496768785,"sku":"NLS9780520300491","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0520300491.jpg?v=1751040168"},{"product_id":"american-plastic-book-laurie-essig-9780807003237","title":"American Plastic","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePlastic surgery has become the answer for many Americans, and in \u003ci\u003eAmerican Plastic \u003c\/i\u003esociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture \u003ci\u003eand \u003c\/i\u003eour economy--a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePlastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It's estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to fix ourselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50361995919633,"sku":"CIN0807003239VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807003239.jpg?v=1751107391"},{"product_id":"american-plastic-book-laurie-essig-9780807000557","title":"American Plastic","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe riveting story of how cosmetic surgery and plastic money melted together to create a subprime mortgage crisis of the body \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePlastic surgery has become the answer for many Americans, and in \u003ci\u003eAmerican Plastic \u003c\/i\u003esociologist Laurie Essig explores how we arrived at this particular solution. Over the last decade there has been a 465 percent increase in cosmetic work, and we now spend over $12 billion annually on procedures like liposuction, face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs. In this fascinating book, Essig argues that this transformation is the result of massive shifts in both our culture \u003ci\u003eand \u003c\/i\u003eour economy--a perfect storm of greed, desire, and technology. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePlastic is crucial to who we are as Americans, Essig observes. We not only pioneered plastic money but lead the world in our willingness to use it. It's estimated that 30 percent of plastic surgery patients earn less than $30,000 a year; another 41 percent earn less than $60,000. And since the average cost of cosmetic work is $8,000, a staggering 85 percent of patients assume debt to get work done. Using plastic surgery as a lens on better understanding our society, Essig shows how access to credit, medical advances, and the pressures from an image- and youth-obsessed culture have led to an unprecedented desire to fix ourselves.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50368285606161,"sku":"CIN0807000558G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51697492754705,"sku":"CIN0807000558VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0807000558.jpg?v=1751075783"},{"product_id":"queer-in-russia-book-laurie-essig-9780822323464","title":"Queer in Russia","description":"In Queer in Russia Laurie Essig examines the formation of gay identity and community in the former Soviet Union. As a sociological fieldworker, she began her research during the late 1980s, before any kind of a public queer identity existed in that country. After a decade of conducting interviews, as well as observing and analyzing plays, books, pop music, and graffiti, Essig presents the first sustained study of how and why there was no Soviet gay community or even gay identity before perestroika and the degree to which this situation has—or has not—changed. While male homosexual acts were criminalized in Russia before 1993, women attracted to women were policed by the medical community, who saw them less as criminals than as diseased persons potentially cured by drug therapy or transsexual surgery. After describing accounts of pre-perestroika persecution, Essig examines the more recent state of sexual identities in Russia. Although the fall of communism brought new freedom to Russian queers, there are still no signs of a mass movement forming around the issue, and few identify themselves as lesbians or gay men, even when they are involved in same-sex relations. Essig does reveal, however, vibrant manifestations of gay life found at the local level—in restaurants, discos, clubs, and cruising strips, in newspapers, journals, literature, and the theater. Concluding with a powerful exploration of the surprising affinities between some of Russia’s most prominent nationalists and its queers, Queer in Russia fills a gap in both Russian and cultural studies.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51008375980305,"sku":"NIN9780822323464","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51333680791825,"sku":"CIN082232346XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/082232346X.jpg?v=1763485178"},{"product_id":"love-inc-book-laurie-essig-9780520295018","title":"Love, Inc.","description":"The notion of “happily ever after” has been ingrained in many of us since childhood—meet someone, date, have the big white wedding, and enjoy your well-deserved future. But why do we buy into this idea? 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