In 1890s America Thorstein Veblen attacked a careless acceptance of prevailing social structures, identifying ancient roots for ‘pecuniary culture’ and ‘conspicuous consumption’ – realities that promoted materialism and squashed fulfilment. In The Theory of the Leisure Class the worthy Engineer, creating essential products for all, is pitted against the predatory Businessman, exempt from grubby industrial toil and focussed on useless profits. Thanks to its literary merit, placing Veblen among outstanding like-minded contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James, the arguments it contains were especially persuasive. Veblen shook things up with his fascinating analysis of a society that is wasting time and money. Greatly influential and ever relevant, it is presented here with warmth and authority by Robert G. Slade.