A Consumers' Republic
The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · December 30, 2003
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.
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- Who it’s for
- A clear-eyed history of how postwar consumption reshaped prosperity, citizenship, and social divisions.
- Themes
- Postwar mass consumption, Consumer culture and political influence, Gender, class, and racial inequality
- Genres
- 20th-Century America, Social History, Economic History
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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.
Continue reading
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.
Buying Into America
A clear-eyed history of how postwar consumption reshaped prosperity, citizenship, and social divisions.
Come here for
- The uneasy bond between shopping, patriotism, and political influence
- A view of consumer power as both economic and civic
Expect
- Prosperity’s promise alongside its unequal costs
- A broad account of consumption’s effects on American life
Where it sits
| Economic History | 59% |
|---|---|
| Social History | 52% |
| 20th-Century America | 47% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Economic Development
- U.S. History
- 20th-Century America
- Authors
- Lizabeth Cohen
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- December 30, 2003
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Postwar mass consumption · Consumer culture and political influence · Gender, class, and racial inequality
- Reading lane
- Economic Development