The Socialist Good Life
Desire, Development, and Standards of Living in Eastern Europe
Zsuzsa Gille editor Diana Mincyte editor Cristofer Scarboro editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Indiana University Press
Published:2nd Jun '20
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£66.00(9780253047762)
What does the good life mean in a "backward" place?
As communist regimes denigrated widespread unemployment and consumer excess in Western countries, socialist Eastern European states simultaneously legitimized their power through their apparent ability to satisfy consumers' needs. Moving beyond binaries of production and consumption, the essays collected here examine the lessons consumption studies can offer about ethnic and national identity and the role of economic expertise in shaping consumer behavior. From Polish VCRs to Ukrainian fashion boutiques, tropical fruits in the GDR to cinemas in Belgrade, The Socialist Good Life explores what consumption means in a worker state where communist ideology emphasizes collective needs over individual pleasures.
This is a thought-provoking and enlightening, if in places frustrating, collection of interdisciplinary essays that will be of benefit to social scientists interested in consumer lifeworlds under communist rule.
-- Gediminas Lankauskas, University of Regina * The Russian Review *The volume is a useful study of Eastern European consumption during socialism and an invaluable tool with which to think about writing the histories of consumerism and state socialism in general. The provocative conclusions regarding socialism's failures as reverse echoes of our world today, with its own tortured relation to consumption, should, one hopes, resonate beyond the confines of the fields of Eastern European and socialist history.
-- Victor Petrov - University of Tennessee * H-Net (SocialismISBN: 9780253047793
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 386g
256 pages