Louis Patsouras unravels the riddled reputation of Thorstein Veblen and analyzes his varied and important contributions to modern social theory. Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) was an unrelenting critic of the American way of life. In his first and best-known work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen defined the social attitudes and values that condoned the misuse of wealth and the variety of ways in which the resources of modern society were wasted...