Contemporary Adulthood and the Night-Time Economy [Hardcover]

This book examines the experiences of those dedicated drinkers at the forefront of the new night-time leisure industries that revolutionized the way we think about our city centres. Smith uses the night-time leisure economy as a lens through which to view the relationship between global consumer capital and the erosion of 'traditional' adulthood.1. Introduction 2. Socioeconomic Change, Work and Leisure 3. Binge Britain and the NTE 4. Consuming the City 5. Youth, Adulthood and the NTE 6. Drinking Biographies 7. Desire, Motivation and the NTE 8. Identity and the NTE 9. Work, Friendship and the NTE 10. Conclusions and Futures

Avoiding both clich?-ridden hysteria, and the over-ripe products of redundant theoretical silos, Oliver Smith has produced a beautifully written, carefully nuanced account of post-industrial leisure that normalises and explains the contemporary night-time economy. Read it before going to the pub. - Dick Hobbs, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, UK

This book is a must read for anyone wanting to make sense of the relationship between 'extended' adolescence, alcohol consumption, and the night-time economy (NTE). Based on a thorough analysis of changes and trends in the NTE, and careful ethnographic observations and interviews with young adults, this book theoretically and empirically redefines the phenomenon of 'going out' in contemporary society. - Robert Hollands, Professor of Sociology, Newcastle University, UK

In this superb ethnographic study of Britain's commodified and consumerised night-time economy, Oliver Smith bravely ignores the disciplinary injunction to identify cultural resistance blossoming across post-crash capitalism's arid landscape. Instead he finds anxiety, half-hearted hedonism and an enduring sense of lack among a community of thirty-somethings unwilling to give up the preoccupations of youth and unable to identify anything more appealing than another weekend trawling tl£§