Decoding Modern Consumer Societies [Hardcover]

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.Taking Stock and Forging Ahead: The Past and Future of Consumption History; H.Berghoff ?& U.Spiekermann ? PART I: CONSUMPTION HISTORY TODAY Consumption History in Europe: an Overview of Recent Trends; H.G.Haupt Research on the History of Consumption in the USA: An Overview; G.Cross? The Hidden Consumer: Consumption in the Economic History of Japan; P.Francks? Consumption, Identities, and Agency in Africa: An Overview; H.P.Hahn? PART II: CONSUMPTION AND HISTORICAL SUB-DISCIPLINES The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization; P.W.Laird? Affluence and Sustainability: Environmental History and the History of Consumption; F.Uekoetter Consumption Politics and Politicized Consumption: Monarchy, Republic, and Dictatorship in Germany, 19001939; H.Berghoff Consumption and Space: Inner-City Pedestrian Malls and the Consequences of Changing Consumer Geographies; J.Logemann ? Continental Europeans Respond to American Consumer Culture: J?rgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, and Umberto Eco; D.Horowitz? PART III: CASE STUDIES 'God's Own Consumers': Billy Graham, Mass Evangelism, and Consumption in the United States during the 1950s; U.A.Balbier ? A Historical Herbal: Household Medicine and Herbal Commerce in a Developing Consumer Society; S.Strasser ? Science, Fruits, and Vegetables: A Case Study on the Interaction of Knowledge and Consumption in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany; U.Spiekermann ? An Ambivalent Embrace: Businessmen, Mass Consumption, and Visions of America in the Third Reich; S.J.Wiesen

'This volume will serve as a useful companion to those interested in the history of consumers and colœ