The Making of Consumer Culture in Modern Britain

About the Book

CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE AWARD WINNER 2018 It is commonly accepted that the consumer is now centre stage in modern Britain, rather than the worker or producer. Consumer choice is widely regarded as the major source of self-definition and identity rather than productive activity. Politicians vie with each other to fashion their appeal to ‘citizen-consumers'. When and how did these profound changes occur? Which historical alternatives were pushed to the margins in the process? In what ways did the everyday consumer practices and forms of consumer organising adopted by both middle and working-class men and women shape the outcomes? This study of the making of consumer culture in Britain since 1800 explores these questions, introduces students to major debates and cuts a distinctive path through this vibrant field. It suggests that the consumer culture that emerged during this period was shaped as much by political relationships as it was by economic and social factors.

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations

1. Historicising Consumer Culture

Part One: A New World of Goods: 1800-1870

Preface
2. Producing Consumers: Consumption Practices
3. Alternative Paths: The Politics of Consumption

Part Two: Making a Mass Market: 1870-1920

Preface
4. Image Worlds: The Rise of Modern Advertising
5. Shopping as Pleasure: Department Stores
6. Co-op Commonwealth: Consumer Organising

Part Three: A Consumers’ Democracy: 1920-2000

Preface
7. Ideal Home: The Growth of the New Consumerism
8. Mass Consumerism: From Austerity to Affluence
9. Consumer Culture: The Hegemony of Choice

Epilogue: Satisfaction Guaranteed?

Sources
Select bibliography

About the Author :
Peter Gurney is Professor of British Social History at the University of Essex, UK.

Review :
The book provides important insights into class and gender as it pertains to politics and consumption, and highlights the dueling sense of satisfaction and anxiety that has characterized modern consumer culture. The well-paced analysis likewise traces the evolution of consumption-related practices such as advertising and the experience of shopping. The agency of consumers themselves is covered as well; Gurney’s treatment of the history of cooperative ventures is particularly instructive in this regard ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. Consumer society in Britain has found its historian! In a clear yet challenging account, Peter Gurney has produced a comprehensive study of consumption in all its manifestations. He has done so by emphasising the important power dynamics that have shaped our role as consumers and the economy and society within which we live. Both new students and established scholars will find much to grapple with in these pages. Gurney's book is essential reading for anyone interested in consumption, commodities and how they have all shaped modern Britain. And who can afford not to be interested in that? Gurney is both a keen and enthusiastic shopper and well aware of the ethical, moral and critical dimensions to these debates. Ranging across the 19th and 20th centuries and through luxury and poverty, there is something for all here. Much like a good shop, an historian's emporium, one might say! A pleasurable but powerful study that demonstrates how retailing and shopping fashioned the history of modern Britain. With a great eye for key turning points and telling examples, Gurney has given us a sweeping overview of more than three decades of scholarship on the consumer culture, commercial practices, and politics of consumption in the nation of shopkeepers since the eighteenth century.