Consuming Behaviors: Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Britain

In twentieth-century Britain, consumerism increasingly defined and redefined individual and social identities. New types of consumers emerged: the idealized working-class consumer, the African consumer and the teenager challenged the prominent position of the middle and upper-class female shopper. Linking politics and pleasure, Consuming Behaviours explores how individual consumers and groups reacted to changes in marketing, government control, popular leisure and the availability of consumer goods.

From football to male fashion, tea to savings banks, leading scholars consider a wide range of products, ideas and services and how these were marketed to the British public through periods of imperial decline, economic instability, war, austerity and prosperity. The development of mass consumer society in Britain is examined in relation to the growing cultural hegemony and economic power of the United States, offering comparisons between British consumption patterns and those of other nations.

Bridging the divide between historical and cultural studies approaches, Consuming Behaviours discusses what makes British consumer culture distinctive, while acknowledging how these consumer identities are inextricably a product of both Britain’s domestic history and its relationship with its Empire, with Europe and with the United States.

More about the book

Erika Rappaport, Sandra Trudgen Dawson, Mark J. Crowley, eds. Consuming Behaviors: Identity, Politics and Pleasure in Twentieth-Century Britain. (Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, 2015). Hardback, PDF eBook, EPUB eBook and Paperback.

Authors

Erika D. Rappaport is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She received her PhD from Rutgers University in 1993. Read more

Sandra Trudgen Dawson is an Instructor of History and Women’s Studies at Northern Illinois University. Read more

Mark J. Crowley is Associate Professor at the School of History, Wuhan University, China. He is a graduate of the Universities of Wales (Cardiff), Oxford and London. Read  more