Brewing Socialism
Coffee, East Germans, and Twentieth-Century Globalization
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Berghahn Books
Published:14th Oct '22
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
Placing coffee at the center of its analysis, Brewing Socialism links East Germany’s consumption and food culture to its relationship to the wider world. Andrew Kloiber reveals the ways that everyday cultural practices surrounding coffee drinking not only connected East Germans to a global system of exchange, but also perpetuated a set of traditions and values which fit uneasily into the Socialist Unity Party’s conceptualization of a modern Socialist Utopia. Sifting through the relationship between material culture and ideology, this unique work examines the complex tapestry of traditions, history and cultural values that underpinned the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR).
“In an exemplary fashion, Brewing Socialism highlights the power and cultural politics of consumption in the former East Germany. By focusing on one specific but important commodity, coffee, the author explores the connection between consumer demands and expectations and the political decision-making of the SED leadership. Kloiber does an admirable job in terms of exploring the fraught assumptions and long-term implications of these negotiations with socialist developing nations, in which socialist brotherhood was not always the most essential and driving motivation.”• Gerd Horten, Emeritus Professor of Concordia University
ISBN: 9781800736696
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
262 pages