Do NOT steal this book!

The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting

Have you ever shoplifted? If so, you’re one of approximately 27 million Americans who “boost” products from retail outlets every year. For such a rampant practice, it has traditionally been rejected by academia and the media as a legitimate topic of study and discussion. In The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, Rachel Shteir attempts to lend some weight to the issue and define the act of stealing as a reflection of our culture. She traces the evolution of shoplifting as it originated in Elizabethan England, was pathologized as kleptomania in nineteenth-century Paris and served as a symbolic act of protest in the 1960s. How has shoplifting become such a popular crime? What methods are being put in place to prevent theft? How are shoplifters punished? What is the ultimate cost to retailers and communities?

Have you ever shoplifted? If so, you’re one of approximately 27 million Americans who “boost” products from retail outlets every year. For such a rampant practice, it has traditionally been rejected by academia and the media as a legitimate topic of study and discussion. In The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, Rachel Shteir attempts to lend some weight to the issue and define the act of stealing as a reflection of our culture. She traces the evolution of shoplifting as it originated in Elizabethan England, was pathologized as kleptomania in nineteenth-century Paris and served as a symbolic act of protest in the 1960s. How has shoplifting become such a popular crime? What methods are being put in place to prevent theft? How are shoplifters punished? What is the ultimate cost to retailers and communities?

Guest

Rachel Shteir, author of The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting; associate professor and the head of the BFA program in criticism and dramaturgy at the Theatre School at DePaul University