Abstract

George Ritzer's The McDonaldization of Society has generated an unprecedented number of sales and scholarly interest, as demonstrated by highly impressive sales figures, new editions of the book, and the growing critical literature dedicated to the phenomenon of which this book is a part (see also Alfino, Caputo and Wynard 1998 and Kincheloe and Shelton, forthcoming). Ritzer's popularization of Max Weber's theory of rationalization and its application to a study of the processes of McDonaldization presents a concrete example of applied social analysis which clarifies important developments in the present moment, calling attention to their costs and benefits, their positive and negative sides. The wide-spread reception -- and the controversy it has evoked -- suggests that Ritzer has touched upon some vital nerve centers of the contemporary era which I suggest have to do with discontents over modernity and ambivalent attitudes toward the rapid transformation of the present for which the term "postmodernity" has been coined.