Decoding Modern Consumer Societies

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Taking Stock and Forging Ahead: The Past and Future of Consumption History

   1. Taking Stock and Forging Ahead: The Past and Future of Consumption History

      • Hartmut Berghoff, Uwe Spiekermann

      Pages 1-13

3. Consumption History Today

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

      PDF

   2. Consumption History in Europe: An Overview of Recent Trends

      • Heinz-Gerhard Haupt

      Pages 17-35

   3. Research on the History of Consumption in the United States: An Overview

      • Gary Cross

      Pages 37-49

   4. The Hidden Consumer: Consumption in the Economic History of Japan

      • Penelope Francks

      Pages 51-68

   5. Consumption, Identities, and Agency in Africa: An Overview

      • Hans Peter Hahn

      Pages 69-86

4. Consumption and Historical Disciplines

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 87-87

      PDF

   2. The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization

      • Pamela Walker Laird

      Pages 89-109

   3. Affluence and Sustainability: Environmental History and the History of Consumption

      • Frank Uekoetter

      Pages 111-124

   4. Consumption Politics and Politicized Consumption: Monarchy, Republic, and Dictatorship in Germany, 1900–1939

      • Hartmut Berghoff

      Pages 125-148

   5. Consumption and Space: Inner-City Pedestrian Malls and the Consequences of Changing Consumer Geographies

      • Jan Logemann

      Pages 149-170

   6. Continental Europeans Respond to American Consumer Culture: Jürgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, and Umberto Eco

      • Daniel Horowitz

      Pages 171-191

5. Case Studies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 193-193

      PDF

   2. “God’s Own Consumers”: Billy Graham, Mass Evangelism, and Consumption in the United States during the 1950s

      • Uta Andrea Balbier

      Pages 195-209

   3. A Historical Herbal: Household Medicine and Herbal Commerce in a Developing Consumer Society

      • Susan Strasser

      Pages 211-228

   4. Science, Fruits, and Vegetables: A Case Study on the Interaction of Knowledge and Consumption in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany

      • Uwe Spiekermann

      Pages 229-248

   5. An Ambivalent Embrace: Businessmen, Mass Consumption, and Visions of America in the Third Reich

      • S. Jonathan Wiesen

      Pages 249-265

6. Back Matter

   Pages 267-287

   PDF

Drawing on a wide range of studies of Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa, the contributions gathered here consider how political history, business history, the history of science, cultural history, gender history, intellectual history, anthropology, and even environmental history can help us decode modern consumer societies.

• anthropology
• commerce
• cultural history
• environment
• gender
• Germany
• history
• history of science
• intellectual history
• interaction
• politics
• society
• sustainability
• Trends

'This volume will serve as a useful companion to those interested in the history of consumers and consumption and the historiography of these themes.' - Pamela Swett, associate professor and chair, Department of History, McMaster University

• German Historical Institute, USA

  Hartmut Berghoff, Uwe Spiekermann

HARTMUT BERGHOFF Director of the German Historical Institute.
UWE SPIEKERMANN Deputy Director of the German Historical Institute.

Policies and ethics