The Long History of Contemporary Consumer Society. Chronologies, Practices, and Politics in Modern Europe

This article challenges conventional histories which present »consumer society« as a recent break with modern class society in the age of affluence after the Second World War. Such stage theories are problematic. Drawing on a mix of empirical and interdisciplinary studies, the article explores the longer history of consumption, transnational flows, and internal diversification. Alongside choice and commodities, it emphasizes the role of routines and everyday practices for the development of consumption, East and West. Consumer cultures have been and remain diverse. Older theories, from Veblen to Adorno and Bourdieu, no longer offer satisfactory approaches. For historians, there is much to gain from giving greater attention to differences within as well as between societies, to generational change and temporal dynamics, and to the use of things.