Political Virtue and Shopping: Individuals, Consumerism and Collective Action. By Michele Micheletti. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 247p. $55.00.

Although this book is complex and multifaceted, there is one central argument running through it. This argument consists of the claim that consumption practices can be understood as political practices, and that such consumption practices are significant for societal development. For example, when a woman goes to the supermarket to buy shampoo, she can choose to buy the one with an environmentally friendly label, thus supporting policies of sustainability. The author sees the phenomenon of political consumerism as a reaction to the derooting of politics from the context of the nation-state into more microlocal as well as more global contexts, and she develops her own concept for defining political consumerism as political participation, namely, individualized collective action.