S. Illeris The Service Economy - a Geographical Approach. Wiley, Chichester 1996. viii, 236 s., ill., 24 cm. GBP 35,-.

Service industry has never attracted researchers of working life as much as mass producing industry. The middle class bank clerk has not been such an attractive research object as the metal worker, whose every move has been studied and every possible class position has been theorised. Yet the great changes in the service part of the economy have had almost revolutionary social effects. This neglect is supposedly one of the reasons why theory in the field of service work is meagre and has not developed into an exiting academic battleground. Exiting or not the general belief is that we are on our way to a service economy, but we are at the same time quite uncertain of how, why and wherel Is it at all possible that we can survive by shaving one another? That is (according to Illeris) an almost embarrassingly stupid question. But non the less, in this book, he takes the trouble to answer that and a number of other basic questions, like how can we in a purposeful way define service work. Why are services growing and why does service work have different shares in economies at the same GDP level? Can service growth be a statistical illusion because service activities that used to be performed by producing firms today are sold by independent firms over the market? Or has the service content of a product risen also within the producing firms to the extent that the service share of the economy

actually is under calculated? Where do different types of services locate and what are their effect on regional development? Illeris does not have all the answers but reviews the theoretical explanations and current research in the field. A special advantage of this book is that it relates not only to English literature but also to French and Scandinavian. If you are at all interested in services this book is an excellent starting point.