Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe

ISBN-13: 9780199827671 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 430 str.

Paulina Bren; Mary Neuburger

Opis

Communism Unwrapped reveals the complex world of consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe, exploring the ways people shopped, ate, drank, smoked, cooked, acquired, assessed and exchanged goods. These everyday experiences, the editors and contributors argue, were central to the way that communism was lived in its widely varied contexts in the region. From design, to production, to retail sales and black market exchange, Communism Unwrapped follows communist goods from producer to consumer, tracing their circuitous routes. In the communist world this journey was rife with its own meanings, shaped by the special political and social circumstances of these societies. In examining consumption behind the Iron Curtain, this volume brings dimension and nuance to understandings of the communist period and the history of consumerism.

Recenzje

[Bren and Neuburger] provide a valuable and detailed backdrop to a history of places where sausage stands for abundance and bulldozed parmesan symbolises crushed hopes for freedom.

O autorze

Paulina Bren is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Vassar College. Mary Neuburger is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.