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Drawing on a wide range of studies of Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa, the contributions gathered here consider how political history, business history, the history of science, cultural history, gender history, intellectual history, anthropology, and even environmental history can help us decode modern consumer societies.

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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

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´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

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

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