Advertising is often used to illustrate popular and academic debates about cultural and economic life. This book reviews cultural and sociological approaches to advertising and, using historical evidence, demonstrates that a rethink of the analysis of advertising is long overdue.

Liz McFall surveys dominant and problematic tendencies within the current discourse. This book offers a thorough review of the literature and also introduces fresh empirical evidence.

Advertising: A Cultural Economy uses a historical study of advertising to regain a sense of how it has been patterned, not by the `epoch', but by the interaction of institutional, organisational and technological forces.

Introduction
The Quaint Device of Advertising
Colonising of the Real
The Persuasive Subject of Advertising
The Hybridisation of Culture and Economy
The Uses of History
Pervasive Institutions and Constituent Practices
Persuasive Products
Conclusion
Devices and Desires