Bela Tomka is professor of History at Department of Contemporary History, University of Szeged, Hungary

• Foreword1 Introduction: Comparisons and the Triple Approach to Well-Being1.1 Economic Growth, Consumption, and Quality of Life in Comparative Research1.2 The Aims and Scope of Research1.3 Methods and Sources1.4 The Structure of the Volume2 Economic Growth: Catching Up and Falling Behind2.1 Measuring Economic Output2.2 Trends and Stages of Growth in Western Europe2.3 Trajectories of Growth in East Central Europe3 Consumption: Structures, Practices, and Policies3.1 Changing Consumption Patterns in Western Europe3.2 Consumption in Communist East Central Europe4 Quality of Life: Towards a More Comprehensive Understanding of Well-Being4.1 Conceptual and Methodological Issues4.2 Trajectories of Well-Being in Western Europe4.3 The Quality of Life in East Central Europe5 Determinants of Change: Accounting for Growth and Beyond5.1 Factors of Economic Growth5.2 Determinants of the Quality of Life5.3 Causes of Convergence and Divergence6 Passages to the New Millennium: The Evolving Order of Divisions6.1 Economic Growth in Western Europe at the Turn of the Millennium: Changes in the Quality of Life6.2 East Central Europe after the Regime Change: Economic Transformation, Consumer Aspirations, and the Pursuit of Well-Being7 Conclusions: Lessons of the Triple ApproachAppendixBibliographyList of tables and figuresIndex

"The prominent Hungarian social historian, Béla Tomka, has written an important book on socialist and post-socialist economies in Central Europe. His central tenet is that the traditional analysis of economic growth and living standards, which quantitative economic historians have undertaken, does not provide a complete picture of comparative economic development. Only by investigating what growth meant for ordinary consumers and households, can we understand the motives for modernisation and evaluate its societal impact. Austerities and Aspirations makes the ambitious attempt to assess the economic development of East Central Europe in a comparative perspective based on three dimensions of progress: growth, the standard of living, and consumption."