Decoding Modern Consumer Societies

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Taking Stock and Forging Ahead: The Past and Future of Consumption History....Pages 1-13
Front Matter....Pages 15-15
Consumption History in Europe: An Overview of Recent Trends....Pages 17-35
Research on the History of Consumption in the United States: An Overview....Pages 37-49
The Hidden Consumer: Consumption in the Economic History of Japan....Pages 51-68
Consumption, Identities, and Agency in Africa: An Overview....Pages 69-86
Front Matter....Pages 87-87
The Business of Consumer Culture History: Systems, Interactions, and Modernization....Pages 89-109
Affluence and Sustainability: Environmental History and the History of Consumption....Pages 111-124
Consumption Politics and Politicized Consumption: Monarchy, Republic, and Dictatorship in Germany, 1900–1939....Pages 125-148
Consumption and Space: Inner-City Pedestrian Malls and the Consequences of Changing Consumer Geographies....Pages 149-170
Continental Europeans Respond to American Consumer Culture: Jürgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, and Umberto Eco....Pages 171-191
Front Matter....Pages 193-193
“God’s Own Consumers”: Billy Graham, Mass Evangelism, and Consumption in the United States during the 1950s....Pages 195-209
A Historical Herbal: Household Medicine and Herbal Commerce in a Developing Consumer Society....Pages 211-228
Science, Fruits, and Vegetables: A Case Study on the Interaction of Knowledge and Consumption in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany....Pages 229-248
An Ambivalent Embrace: Businessmen, Mass Consumption, and Visions of America in the Third Reich....Pages 249-265
Back Matter....Pages 267-287