Decoding Modern Consumer Societies

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

• 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, 1900–1939; 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: Jürgen 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 consumption and the historiography of these themes.' - Pamela Swett, associate professor and chair, Department of History, McMaster University