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A Nation of Shopkeepers: Retailing in Britain 1550-2000"A Nation of Shopkeepers" reflects research on retail history and cultures of consumption. The contributors challenge existing ideas about retail development, showing how, for example, large-scale retailers played a far lesser role in the development of the modern city that is generally thought, and how the success of department stores was determined less by "entrepreneurial" spirit and more by the unforseen consequences of legislation. With the growing interest in cultures of consumption, this book should be useful to specialists and students in retail history, human geography and social and cultural history. (I.B. Taurus publishers)
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Baudelaire, Degeneration Theory, and Literary Criticism in Fin de siècle SpainThis article seeks, through an analysis of the response of `psychologist critics' inspired by degeneration theory to the work of Charles Baudelaire in fin de siècle Spain, to determine the originality of the application of this theory to literary history and criticism of the Fin de siècle; to argue that this period of literary history cannot be studied meaningfully other than by reference to an international context; and to challenge the assumption that cultures considered at that time and subsequently to be peripheral were indeed cultural backwaters unreceptive to the literary developments of the day. (Ingenta)
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Erfolg in der Nische? Die Vietnamesen in der DDR und in OstdeutschlandTraces the social development of the Vietnamese contract workers since the collapse of SED rule to the present day and also provides an overview of the most important aspects of their life in Germany. An examination is undertaken of the decline in the numbers of former Vietnamese contract workers in East Germany, from about 59,000 at the end of 1989 to 21,000 one year later, and the dramatic changes to their work contracts and their economic, occupational and social situation. Special attention is paid to the question of solidarity within the group of Vietnamese and problems in interaction with the German population and their surroundings. The Vietnamese experience of the massive increase in xenophobia soon after the Wende played a crucial role in the growing cohesiveness of the ethnic group. Finally, an assessment is made of the situation of the second generation of Vietnamese living in Germany, in particular problems such as relations between family members.
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Forming a new concept of home: how consumption of textiles contributed to homemaking between 1760 and 1850THIS BOOK: Textiles form the largest group of designed objects available for study, whether as objects in their own rights, as constituents parts of fashion, furniture and interiors, or as industry - the latter embracing production, trade and working environments and experiences. This anthology demonstrates the range of textile studies through eighteen essays that consider the process of designing and making, the makers and manufacturers, the product itself, or how it is sold, used and perceived. Tackling subjects from prehistory to the 1990s, each has been ed to be of particular interest to students and professionals in design, cultural history, fashion and textiles, but also will be of use to anyone who is interested in the study of objects. Set within the context of interdisciplinary techniques in the study of designed objects, the contributors have been drawn from diverse professional backgrounds in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Their experience encompasses the history of textiles and dress, design and economics, museology, social history, psychoanalytical therapy, artchitecture, sociology and textile practice. Divided into four sections, this volume both demonstrates and explores cross-disciplinary research, while enriching and making acccessible the myriad of ways in which textiles - and objects in general - can be interpreted. The editors are the freelance historian, Mary Schoeser, and Dr Christine Boydell, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art and Material Culture, De Montfort University. Published widely, they previously collaborated on the exhibition and publication The Architect of Floors: modernism, art and Marion Dorn designs (1996). (Middlesex University Press)
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Ideals, Reality and Meaning: Homemaking in England in the First Half of the Nineteenth CenturyAdvice books in the first half of the nineteenth century offered homemakers instructions for creating the ideal home. The problem for the design historian is to ascertain with what results the homemaker mediated these instructions. This article suggests using lists of house contents, which survive in a variety of forms, and adopting a qualitative approach to their analysis. Evidence for a number of middle-class homes is used to explore the variations. The symbolic value of individual objects and their role within the material culture of the home is examined - in particular, the use of textiles to articulate the practical and symbolic functions of living rooms. Although all the examples followed the general tendencies of the period as described in advice books, they also showed distinct differences according to social status,age. sex and occupation. A qualitative approach to the evedence permits exploration of the differences between homes and the possible social and cultural meaning that they conveyed. (Oxford University Press)
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Looking across the river: German-Polish border communities and the construction of the OtherThe paper reports results of an ongoing ESRC-funded project into constructions of identity in German and Polish border communities. We are interested here in how our informants from different generations position themselves and their communities with regard to those on the other side of the river. The data come from a set of semi-structured interviews conducted in the towns of Guben (Germany) and Gubin (Poland) separated by the river Neisse, with some reference to the data elicited in the similarly split communities on the former East West German border on the Saale. For the people living in our target communities, the official narratives of the nation were re-written not just once, but in the case of the older generation at least three times. This meant a challenge of how to construct their own cultural identity in response to official changes and in relation to oppositional constructions of the nation on the other side of the border literally by ‘looking across’ at the Other in their every-day lives. In this paper we discuss how members of the oldest generation living on both sides of the river Neisse in the respective German and Polish towns of Guben and Gubin construct each other in their discourses. We show that the discourses of the Other are ridden by a mismatch in the constructions of the ownership of the past and the present. While the Polish narratives construct the German neighbours in terms of threat to the present status quo of the town, the German narratives position Gubin mostly in terms of the nostalgic past. (John Benjamins)
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Men and Menswear: Sartorial Consumption in Britain, 1880 -1939Despite increasing academic interest in both the study of masculinity and the history of consumption, there are still few published studies that bring together both concerns. By investigating the changing nature of the retailing of menswear, this book illuminates wider aspects of masculine identity as well as patterns of male consumption between the years 1880 and 1939. While previous historical studies of masculinity have focused overwhelmingly on the moral, spiritual and physical characteristics associated with notions of 'manliness', this book considers the relationship between men and activities which were widely considered to be at least potentially 'unmanly' – selling, as well as buying clothes – thus shedding new light on men's lives and identities in this period. Contents: General editor's preface; Introduction; Part I Consuming Menswear: Identities, 1880–1939; Non-conformity, 1880–1939; Menswear and war,1914–1918; The democratisation of menswear? 1919–1939. Part II Selling Menswear: Tailoring and manliness, 1880–1914; Menswear retailing and war, 1914–1920; The struggle for survival, 1920–1939. Part III Buying Menswear: Shopping decisions, 1880–1939; Making a purchase, 1880–1939. (Ashgate)
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Men, masculinities and menswear advertising, c.1890-1914"A Nation of Shopkeepers" reflects research on retail history and cultures of consumption. The contributors challenge existing ideas about retail development, showing how, for example, large-scale retailers played a far lesser role in the development of the modern city that is generally thought, and how the success of department stores was determined less by "entrepreneurial" spirit and more by the unforseen consequences of legislation. With the growing interest in cultures of consumption, this book should be useful to specialists and students in retail history, human geography and social and cultural history. (I.B. Taurus publishers)
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Nach der Wende: Vietnamesische Vertragsarbeiter und Vertragsarbeiterinnen in Ostdeutschland heuteThis book traces the social development of the Vietnamese contract workers since the collapse of SED rule to the present day and also provides an overview of the most important aspects of their life in Germany. An examination is undertaken of the decline in the numbers of former Vietnamese contract workers in East Germany, from about 59,000 at the end of 1989 to 21,000 one year later, and the dramatic changes to their work contracts and their economic, occupational and social situation. Special attention is paid to the question of solidarity within the group of Vietnamese and problems in interaction with the German population and their surroundings. The Vietnamese experience of the massive increase in xenophobia soon after the Wende played a crucial role in the growing cohesiveness of the ethnic group. Finally, an assessment is made of the situation of the second generation of Vietnamese living in Germany, in particular problems such as relations between family members.
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Ready-to-wear or Made-to-measure? Consumer Choice in the British Menswear Trade, 1900–1939This article explores British men's attitudes towards the purchase of a particular commodity — the suit — in order to shed some light on the nature of male consumer demand in the four decades before the outbreak of the Second World War. The focus is on men's motives for choosing between a ready-to-wear and a made-to-measure suit. Financial considerations aside, the article suggests that interested and well-informed male consumers generally preferred to buy bespoke suits : while usually more expensive than their ready-made counterparts, these were also perceived to be better quality, better looking, and better value, and therefore most likely to enhance the wearer's sense of self-worth as a manly, discerning and successful consumer. (Ingenta)
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Shopping for a New Identity: Constructions of the Polish–German border in a Polish Border communityThis article aims to show the varying constructions of the Polish–German border in the Polish border town of Zgorzelec. We are interested in how informants from three generations discursively position the frontier itself and the two towns on its either side: Polish Zgorzelec and German Görlitz. The data comes from a Europe-wide ethnographic project studying communities living on the borders between the European Union (EU) and its ascendant nations, funded by the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme. We suggest that the inhabitants of Zgorzelec construct the border on two planes: public and private. In the public sphere, the border is constructed as a means of identifying ‘us Poles’ against all those living on the other side. In those nationalized terms, the border is also constructed as protecting Poland and Zgorzelec's (Polish) community. On the other hand, in the private sphere, the border is represented as virtually invisible allowing the individual to cross it for shopping or entertainment. The border becomes a gateway in which the individual becomes a customer, a shopper with his or her national identity pushed to the background. We also show that the two spheres intersect, creating spaces in which the two orders of discourse are made to co-exist and the discursive mechanisms of separation run next to the mechanisms of inclusion. We explore our informants’ discourses as mediated by the historical context of common experience (eviction, displacement, communism) pertaining mostly to the older generation and by the cultural-economic context (shopping, entertainment) largely in the case of our younger informants. (Sage Publications)
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Stories from Home: English Domestic Interiors, 1750-1850Most homes in the past were not elite, wealthy interiors complete with high fashion furnishings, designed by well-known architects and designers, as many domestic histories often seem to have assumed. As this book makes clear, there were in fact an enormous variety of house interiors in England during the period 1750–1850, reflecting the location, status and gender of particular householders, as well as their changing attitudes, tastes and aspirations. By focusing on non-metropolitan homes, which represented the majority of households in England, this study highlights the need for historians to look beyond prevailing attitudes that often reduce interiors to generic descriptions based on high fashions of the decorative arts. Instead it shows how numerous social and cultural influences affected the manner in which homes were furnished and decorated. Issues such as the availability of goods, gender, regional taste, income, the second-hand market, changing notions of privacy and household hierarchies and print culture, could all have a significant impact on domestic furnishing. The study ends with a discussion of how domestic interiors of historic properties have been presented and displayed in modern times, highlighting how competing notions of the past can cloud as well as illuminate the issue. Combining cultural history and qualitative analysis of evidence, this book presents a new way of looking at 'ordinary' and 'provincial' homes that enriches our understanding of English domestic life of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. (Ashgate Publishing)
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Strukturen der Selbsthilfe im ethnischen NetzwerkThis book traces the social development of the Vietnamese contract workers since the collapse of SED rule to the present day and also provides an overview of the most important aspects of their life in Germany. An examination is undertaken of the decline in the numbers of former Vietnamese contract workers in East Germany, from about 59,000 at the end of 1989 to 21,000 one year later, and the dramatic changes to their work contracts and their economic, occupational and social situation. Special attention is paid to the question of solidarity within the group of Vietnamese and problems in interaction with the German population and their surroundings. The Vietnamese experience of the massive increase in xenophobia soon after the Wende played a crucial role in the growing cohesiveness of the ethnic group. Finally, an assessment is made of the situation of the second generation of Vietnamese living in Germany, in particular problems such as relations between family members.
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The Language of BelongingAddressing one of the most significant aspects of social life in our time - that of cultural identities and identifications - the authors demonstrate ways in which the language we use in everyday life, in our conversations and narratives, constructs and confirms in a continuing, flexible and context-bound way our sense of who we are, where and to whom we belong - or wish to belong. They offer a theoretical reassessment of how we understand, study and analyse processes of multiple and sometimes self-contradictory identification as reflected through the language of belonging and not belonging. The theoretical case is exemplified by the discourses of three-generational families on the Polish-German borders. Prompted by photographs to talk about themselves and other social groups, they provide major insights into the complex identities constructed by and for such families as the result of the major political changes in Europe in the 20th century which threw their lives into turmoil and created different and changing socio-political environments for each generation. (Palgrave Macmillan)
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Towards an Interpretation of Textiles in the Provincial Domestic Interior: Three Homes in the West Midlands, 1780-1848This article explores the role of textiles in the home in the later eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The methodology adopted is a response to the difficulties of researching homes in this period when probate inventories had largely ceased to be made. Instead of using quantitative analysis, this essay focuses on three case studies of homes where detailed lists allow speculation on the uses of furnishing textiles in these homes. Three themes are identified: conspicuous consumption, domestic ideology and the possible meanings of stored textiles. These themes are explored using recent cultural theories to provide a framework for analysis. (Ingenta)
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White Rage: The Extreme Right and American PoliticsThe United States is currently focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism but before the terrible events of 9/11, the worst terrorist atrocity on US soil was the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing which was carried out by home grown American extremists. The extreme right are still militant and dangerous in the US. "White Rage" is an excellent survey of the state of the contemporary extreme right in the United States. It explores the full panoply of extremist groups from the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan to skinhead groups and from the militia groups to anti-abortion extremists. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of American politics, conservatism, and political philosophy.
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Zwischen Integration und Ausgrenzung: Jüdische Zuwanderer aus der ehemaligen Sowjetunion und DeutschlandThis article surveys a transformation that affected both East and West Germany, albeit not to the same extent: the migration and settlement of Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. Originally agreed by the last GDR People's Chamber in 1990, and limited to a maximum of 2,000 individuals, German legislation was amended in 1991 and removed the numerical restrictions. A decade later, Jewish migration into Germany had reached nearly 100,000. While the German government celebrated the restoration of Jewish communities and Jewish life after the devastation inflicted by the Holocaust, the scope and composition of Jewish migration posed major problems for communities charged with integrating newcomers. In West Germany, existing communities more than doubled in size, often leaving Russian Jews in a majority. In East Germany, where the number of Jewish community members had dwindled to below 500 by 1990, the influx and the policy of dispersion across the region meant that new Russian-only communities were found in Potsdam, Schwerin and elsewhere. What would seem to be revitalisation amounted in reality to massive financial burdens on existing communities and divisive cultural pressures. Most of the newcomers are without earned income, employment and look to organisations for support. These, in turn, cannot collect membership dues from impoverished newcomers. Few Russian Jews have any knowledge of the German language and continue to communicate in Russian; few have any knowledge of Jewish religious or cultural traditions, since these were criminalised in the Soviet Union. Moreover, many of the newcomers are non-Jewish family members, or do not have a Jewish mother and are, therefore, not deemed to be Jewish by the religious authorities and the community leadership. In East Germany, the 4,000 or so Jewish newcomers are too few in number to restore Jewish life as a visible and vibrant social or cultural force.