A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America Alfred A. Knopf Jan. 2003 isbn: 0375407502 $32.50 Other Books by Lizabeth Cohen

Lizabeth Cohen, February 7

Friday, 3pm
Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
free and open to public

After a decade and a half of hard times resulting from the Great Depression and the war, the embrace of mass consumption, with its supposed far-reaching benefits—greater freedom, democracy, and equality—transformed American life. The extensive suburbanization of metropolitan areas (propelled by such government policies as the GI Bill), the shift from downtowns to shopping centers, and the advent of targeted marketing all fueled the consumer economy, but also sharpened divisions among Americans along gender, class, and racial lines. At the same time, mass consumption changed American politics, inspiring new forms of political activism through the civil rights and consumer movements and prompting politicians to apply the latest marketing strategies to their political campaigns.

Cohen traces the legacy of the “Consumers’ Republic” into our time, demonstrating how it has reshaped our relationship to government itself, with Americans increasingly judging public services—as if one more purchased good—by the personal benefits they derive from them.

The narrator's witty, piquant, deeply etched evocation of all that was really transpiring under the surface during that seemingly idyllic season gives her wry tale--infused with suppressed passion, disappointment, and enduring hope--its remarkable vividness and impact. Once again, Alice McDermott explores the mysterious depths of what seems like everyday life with unforgettable insight and resonant emotional power.

Brilliantly researched and reasoned, A Consumers’ Republic is a starkly illuminating social and political history.

Praise for the Author:

"Lizabeth Cohen’s rich, compelling study demolishes forever the myth
that suburbs provided a refuge from the social conflicts that continue to shape the American century. A Consumers’Republic is one of the best histories of our times that has ever been written."
--Michael Kazin, co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

"Lizabeth Cohen has done it again. Following her award winning book, Making a New Deal, a Consumer's Republic is another innovative study of social and political history. This interesting and well research volume on mass consumption in the U.S. after World War II will be widely discussed and cited for many years."
--William Julius Wilson, author of When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.

"Lizabeth Cohen's A Consumers' Republic is pure joy: a brilliantly revealing, sometimes painful portrait of consumer activists of the 60's, 70's, and 80's, situated in rich, but until now unexamined historical context. Here, too, are the lessons for the future if the next generation is to reclaim the buoyant democratic promise of the best of our consumer impulses."
-- Michael Pertschuk, Former Chair, Federal Trade Commission

"A surprising, engaging portrayal of the ways that mass consumption transformed America from the small scale to the large, as public authorities intervened massively and consequentially on behalf of their own visions of a consumer society. The book's illustrations alone offer a striking album of local life's texture across four turbulent decades of incessant change."
--Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Social Meaning of Money

"A Consumers’ Republic is a magnificent, path-breaking achievement. Lizabeth Cohen lays bare the deeply transformative impact of mass prosperity on the texture of American social, political, and cultural life in the post-World War II era - its triumphs and costs, as well as its limitations. An unflaggingly provocative, indispensable book."
-- David Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945

"A Consumer’s Republic is a real tour de force. It is impressive in its sheer sweep through a century of complicated history, ranging from popular culture through political protest to demographic analysis. It takes seriously the now clichéd mantra of "race, class, and gender," by showing just how race and class and gender shaped and were shaped by the new idea that consumption defines what it means to be an American. It weaves local and even personal history through a national narrative, and ties it all into clear themes of struggle, triumph, and loss."
-- Jennifer L. Hochschild, editor of Perspectives on Politics

"Shopping malls, suburban neighborhoods, union halls, picket lines, and government offices. These are the places focused on in Cohen's compelling examination of the development of the United States as a consumers’ republic since the late 1930s. In the process she transforms the way we understand postwar America."
--Daniel Horowitz, author of The Anxieties of Affluence: Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979

Author Biography:

Lizabeth Cohen is Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the Department of History at Harvard University. She is the author of Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (1990), which won the Bancroft Prize and the Philip Taft Labor History Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written many articles and essays, and is coauthor (with David Kennedy) of The American Pageant. She lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, with her husband and two daughters.