Description: First published in 1979, Morals and Markets Is a pathbreaking study exploring the development of life insurance in the United States. Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer combines economic history and a sociological perspective to advance a novel interpretation of the life insurance industry.
Review Quotes: Life insurance seemed like such a simple and obvious product, until Zelizer pointed out that it is not. When we learn that it was once shameful to purchase what is now a moral obligation, we are brought up short by the shifting social and symbolic content of consumption. There are rewarding revelations in every chapter of this groundbreaking work.--Mark Granovetter, Stanford University