Article: `HIDDEN PERSUADERS' AUTHOR, PACKARD, AT 82.(NEWS)(Obituary)

Byline: The New York Times

Vance Packard, a journalist turned social critic whose best-selling books - ``The Hidden Persuaders,'' ``The Status Seekers'' and ``The Waste Makers'' - warned Americans in the late 1950s about the excesses of advertising, social climbing and planned obsolescence, died Thursday at Martha's Vineyard Hospital. He was 82 and had homes in New Canaan, Conn., and Martha's Vineyard.

Packard was a highly successful popularizer of serious ideas raised by America's postwar prosperity and the explosion of consumerism. He was skilled as well in coining titles for his books that endured in the national vocabulary. His vision of an America ...

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