Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. In The Consuming Temple, Paul Lerner explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole.
Setting / LocationLondon & UK
Story Era1800s / Victorian
Protagonist / CoreThe consuming temple Lead Character
"Britain is not so much a nation of shopkeepers as a nation of traders and families that have build up mercantile dynasties large and small, from corner shops to department stores and supermarket chains." "The three great trading families who are examined for the first time in detail in this book, the Sainsburys, Cadburys and Lewises (the first ranking among the richest families in the country) represent very different styles of management, business ethos, social conscience and philanthropy." "The evolution of these three very different businesses and families is told against a richly detailed historical backcloth of the changing food industry and shopping habits of the British, the development of enlightened employment policies, and the cut-throat, colourful world of Victorian and Edwardian family department store magnates, with characters such as William Whiteley - shot in his own office by his illegitimate son - and Gordon Selfridge who squandered his fortune on chorus girls."--BOOK JACKET.
"In this highly readable little book Tom Licence reveals how everyday objects, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed"--
The majority of Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States between 1820 and 1924 arrived nearly penniless; yet today their descendants stand out as exceptionally successful. How can we explain their dramatic economic ascent? Have Jews been successful because of cultural factors distinct to them as a group, or because of the particular circumstances that they encountered in America? This book argues that the Jews who flocked to the United States during the age of mass migration were aided appreciably by their association with a particular corner of the American economy: the rag trade. From humble beginnings, Jews rode the coattails of the clothing trade from the margins of economic life to a position of unusual promise and prominence, shaping both their societal status and the clothing industry as a whole. Comparing the history of Jewish participation within the clothing trade in the United States with that of Jews in the same business in England, this book demonstrates that differences within the garment industry on either side of the Atlantic contributed to a very real divergence in social and economic outcomes for Jews in each setting.
Three decades ago, Jessica Mitford became famous when she introduced us to the idiosyncracies of American funeral rites in The American Way of Death. Now in a book as fresh, provocative, and fearless as anything else she has written, she shows us how and in what circumstances Americans give birth. At the start, she knew no more of the subject, and not less, than any mother does. Recalling her experiences in the 1930s and 1940s of giving birth - in London, in Washington. D.C., and in Oakland, California - she observes, "A curious amnesia takes over in which all memory of the discomforts you have endured is wiped out, and your determination never, ever to do that again fast fades." But then, years later in 1989 - when her own children were adults, and birth a subject of no special interest to her - she meet a young woman, a midwife in Northern California who was being harassed by government agents and the medical establishment. Her. Sympathies, along with her reportorial instincts, were immediately stirred. There was a story there that needed to be explored and revealed. Far more than she anticipated then, she was at the beginning of an investigation that would lead her over the next three years to the writing of this extraordinary book. This is not a book about the miracle of life. It is about the role of money and politics in a lucrative industry; a saga of champagne birthing suites for the rich. And desperate measures for the poor. It is a colorful history - from the torture and burning of midwives in medieval times, through the absurd pretensions of the modest Victorian age, to this century's vast succession of anaesthetic, technological, and "natural" birthing fashions. And it is a comprehensive indictment of the politics of birth and national health. Jessica Mitford explores conventional and alternative methods, and the costs of having a child. She gives. Flesh-and-blood meaning to the cold statistics. Daring to ask hard questions and skeptical of soft answers, her book is necessary reading for anyone contemplating childbirth, and for everyone fascinated by the follies of human activity. It may even bring about some salutary changes in the American way of birth.
The consuming temple by Paul Lerner | Literally Just Books
