A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
- ISBN-10
- 0307555364
- ISBN-13
- 9780307555366
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 576
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2008-12-24
- Publisher
- Vintage
- Author
- Lizabeth Cohen
Description
In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2004
- 567 pages
- Paperback
- Vintage
Similar books
-
A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
By Lizabeth CohenThis social and political history is a fascinating exploration of how Americans' participation in mass consumption became a basic component of citizenship in the second half of the 20th century. 3 maps & 64 illustrations.
-
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939
By Lizabeth CohenExamines how ordinary factory workers became unionists and national political participants by the mid-1930s.
-
Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age
By Lizabeth CohenIn Saving America’s Cities, the prizewinning historian Lizabeth Cohen follows the career of Edward J. Logue, whose shifting approach to the urban crisis tracked the changing balance between government-funded public programs and private ...
-
Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America
By Lawrence B. GlickmanA definitive history of consumer activism, Buying Power traces the lineage of this political tradition back to our nation’s founding, revealing that Americans used purchasing power to support causes and punish enemies long before the word ...
-
Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s
By Traci ParkerIn this book, Traci Parker examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores, and broadens our understanding of historical transformations in African American class and labor ...
-
Republic.com
By Cass R. SunsteinThis text shows us how to approach the Internet as responsible people.
-
Raising Consumers: Children and the American Mass Market in the Early Twentieth Century
By Lisa JacobsonJackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Lendol Calder, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ...
-
Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
By John DittmerDetails the Black struggle for civil rights in Mississippi
-
Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning
By Marsha AckermannIn this engaging social history, Marsha Ackermann explores how the idea of “cooling” became firmly embedded in the social perceptions and expectations of Americans, transforming our definition of comfort and the way we live, work, and ...
-
Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America
By Josh Lauer7; Bryant W. Griffin and H. C. Greene, Installment Credits and Collections and the Installment Market (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1938), chaps. 9–12; and Waldo J. Marra, Streamlined Letters (St. Louis: National Retail Credit Association, ...