From the candy bar to the cigarette, records to roller coasters, a technological revolution during the last quarter of the nineteenth century precipitated a colossal shift in human consumption and sensual experience.  Food, drink, and many other consumer goods came to be mass-produced, bottled, canned, condensed, and distilled, unleashing new and intensified surges of pleasure, delight, thrill―and addiction. In  Packaged Pleasures , Gary S. Cross and Robert N. Proctor delve into an uncharted chapter of American history, shedding new light on the origins of modern consumer culture and how technologies have transformed human sensory experience.  In the space of only a few decades, junk foods, cigarettes, movies, recorded sound, and thrill rides brought about a revolution in what it means to taste, smell, see, hear, and touch.  New techniques of boxing, labeling, and tubing gave consumers virtually unlimited access to pleasures they could simply unwrap and enjoy. Manufacturers generated a seemingly endless stream of sugar-filled, high-fat foods that were delicious but detrimental to health.  Mechanically rolled cigarettes entered the market and quickly addicted millions.  And many other packaged pleasures dulled or displaced natural and social delights. Yet many of these same new technologies also offered convenient and effective medicines, unprecedented opportunities to enjoy music and the visual arts, and more hygienic, varied, and nutritious food and drink. For better or for worse, sensation became mechanized, commercialized, and, to a large extent, democratized by being made cheap and accessible. Cross and Proctor have delivered an ingeniously constructed history of consumerism and consumer technology that will make us all rethink some of our favorite things. “For the historian of consumer goods,  Packaged Pleasures offers a comprehensive discussion of an eclectic mix of products including confectionery, convenience foods, cigarettes, sound recordings, film and amusement parks.” ― Times Higher Education “Think your hankering for a Hershey’s bar or yen for Die Hard movies is simply individual preference? Think again. In Packaged Pleasures , historians Cross and Proctor present an ambitious chronology of consumerism and consumer technology.” ― Discover “Cross and Proctor have a keen ear for detail and anecdotes. . . . While networked technologies are reconfiguring associations between the senses, space and society—with work emails checked on holiday, selfies taken at funerals and 3D objects printed locally from a CAD file stored in the “cloud”— Packaged Pleasures offers a timely reminder of the longer history of the relationship between technology, industry and the self.” ― New Scientist “Instead of buying things out of barrels or listening to music in groups, we have singularized those sorts of central experiences and not just made them individual—in individual ‘packets’ of sound like a phonograph or packages of junk food—but we have in most cases made that individualization portable. In Packaged Pleasures Cross and Proctor look at the health and social impact of key consumer innovations at the turn of the last century.” ― Globe & Mail “The book reads well, moves along very rapidly with just the right amount of detail to inform without becoming boring. . . . A great way to see what marketing has done and is doing.” ― San Francisco Book Review “It’s a keen insight and a valuable reminder of the power of seemingly trivial inventions to utterly transform our notion of ‘normal’ life. . . . The authors are at their best when showing how incremental improvements cumulate to create dramatic technological and cultural changes.” ― Weekly Standard “An outstanding history. . . . Highly recommended.” ― Choice “When pleasure was linked with scarcity, we could not over-indulge and satiate ourselves. The emergence of industrialised, packaged pleasures―whether recorded music or confectionery―allows gratification to conquer constraints, putting us on a treadmill of desire and addiction. Are we happier or merely over-loaded with desire; should we abandon instant gratification for something slower and more contemplative? Gary Cross and Robert Proctor ask fundamental questions about our health and well-being in a world of packaged pleasures. Their book is essential reading for anyone interested in questions of public health, the regulation of the food industry, and the shaping of economic policy.” -- Martin Daunton ― University of Cambridge “What makes Cross and Proctor’s book both unique and extremely useful is its examination of a cross section of areas that are rarely, if ever, addressed in combination. There is a rich literature on food, cigarettes, motion pictures, the recording industry, and photography, but this is the first in-depth examination of these ‘packaged pleasures’ in combination so that we can see the interconnections and relationships among these mainstays of consumer culture