How Glamour Shapes Our Lives: Q&A with Author and Former Reason Editor Virginia Postrel

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"If you acknowledge that you find something glamorous it makes you vulnerable because it says something about who you are," says Virginia Postrel, author of the new book, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion. "But I want people to think about what they find glamorous and learn from that."

Postrel, who served as the editor in chief of Reason Magazine from 1989 to 2000, is an internationally acclaimed writer, a regular columnist for Bloomberg View, and the author of two previous books, The Future and its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress (1999) and The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (2004).

She sat down with Reason TV's Nick Gillespie for an hour-long conversation about her new book, which is a meditation on how our perception of glamour shapes our culture, determines the choices we make, and reveals our inner-selves. The book is an entertaining romp, analyzing the deeper significance of the glamorous people and places that have shaped the last century of American culture.