Sign of the Burger : McDonald's and the Culture of Control

Since the first McDonald's popped up in the southern California landscape in the early 1950s looking more like a TV set than a restaurant, the franchise has spread into an enormous empire. But McDonald's is much more than a purveyor of burgers & fries: it is the quintessential late twentieth century institution-a social hologram that contains within it the entire constellation of competing social, economic, & episte-mological tendencies. In The Sign of the Burger: Double Takes on McDonald's, Alan Shelton & Joe Kincheloe examine Ray Kroc's empire to see what it tells us about American history & politics. The book, a series of ethnographic vignettes organized around historical material, theoretical discussions, & social criticism, shows us that while a hamburger might be a mundane commodity, it can be marketed as so much more-namely, a guide for modern American social relations.Shelton, Allen is the author of 'Sign of the Burger : McDonald's and the Culture of Control' with ISBN 9780813329840 and ISBN 0813329841.