Cheap is the new black.

Actually, Lauren Weber’s words are “Cheap is the new green,” in her hopeful nod to ecology as the prompt that might finally make frugality sexy in America. Because nothing else has much tempered its persistent unpopularity and negative connotations with miserliness, self-denial and unworthiness.

To be clear, it’s primarily frugality and thrift that Weber explores here (as in the economical use of resources … living simply and mindfully, without waste), and cheapness (as in consuming inexpensively) to a lesser degree. In a journalist’s voice, she writes about the history of thrift and spending from the Puritans and Quakers to Emerson and Thoreau; from wartime rationing to the expanded postwar industrial capacity that spurred consumerism; from the origin of savings banks, through the growth and decline of home economics, to the Depression and today's financial crisis.

She also explores economics, sociology and a number of competing tensions. For example, is it good citizenship to demonstrate personal responsibility through personal savings, or better to support the national (even global) economy by spending? If you do spend, should it be on “productive” (essential) goods with their long-term economic benefit and not on “consumptive” (luxury) goods? Do your personal gains from ultra-inexpensive imported goods outweigh their high political and environmental costs? And what about advertising, forced obsolescence, ego gratification and keeping up with the Joneses?

Readers with any level of interest in frugality will find themselves repeating the WWII mantra, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,” and will see themselves described in this book -- somewhere along Weber’s continuum from Dumpster-diving freegans to folks who simply believe that less is more. ( )