Editing George Ritzer (section)

=== Modern and postmodern social theory ===
Ritzer is known to generations of students as the author of numerous comprehensive introductions and compendia in social theory. [[Postmodern]] society is a consumer society that invents new means of consumption, such as [[credit cards]], [[shopping malls]], and [[shopping networks]]. Today, "Capitalism needs us to keep on spending at ever-increasing levels to be and remain capitalism."<ref>{{cite web|last=Ritzer|first=George|title=The New Means of Consumption: A Postmodern Analysis|url=http://www.public.iastate.edu/~s2005.soc.401/ritzer(apr29).pdf|access-date=4 October 2012|archive-date=4 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504072609/http://www.public.iastate.edu/~s2005.soc.401/ritzer(apr29).pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>  As with several of Ritzer's other principal works, many are translated into languages as diverse as Chinese, Russian, Persian, Hebrew and Portuguese.<ref name="socy.umd.edu"/> Key volumes in this genre include ''The Sociological Theory'' (7th edition 2008), ''Classical Sociological Theory'' (5th edition 2008), and ''Modern Sociological Theory'' (7th edition 2008), ''Encyclopedia of Social Theory'' (2 vols. 2005), and ''Postmodern Social Theory'' (1997). For convenient access to many of Ritzer's substantive contributions to modern and postmodern social theorizing, see ''Explorations in Social Theory: From Metatheorizing to Rationalization'' (2001) as well as more recent work often co-authored with his many students, such as (with J. Michael Ryan) "Postmodern Social Theory and Sociology: On Symbolic Exchange with a ‘Dead’ Theory," in ''Reconstructing Postmodernism: Critical Debates'' (2007).