Getting and Spending

The history of consumption is a prism through which many aspects of social and political life may be viewed. The essays in this collection represent a variety of approaches and raise such themes as consumption and democracy the development of a global economy the role of the state the centrality of consumption to Cold War politics the importance of the Second World War as a historical divide the language of consumption the contexts of locality race ethnicity gender and class and the environmental consequences of twentieth-century consumer society. They explore the role of the historian as social political and moral critic. Unlike other studies of twentieth-century consumption this book provides international comparisons.