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Overview
Full Product Details
Author: Paulina Bren (Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Adjunct Assistant Professor of History, Vassar College) , Mary Neuburger (Associate Professor of History, Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 23.60cm
, Height: 2.80cm
, Length: 16.30cm
Weight: 0.762kg
ISBN: 9780199827657
ISBN 10: 0199827656
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 20 September 2012
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order 
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Table of Contents
"Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction, Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger I. Living Large: Introduction 1. Tuzex and the Hustler: Living It Up in Czechoslovakia, Paulina Bren 2. Utopia Gone Terribly Right: Plutonium's ""Gated Communities"" in the Soviet Union and the United States, Kate Brown 3. ""Knife in the Water"": Competitive Consumption in Urbanizing Poland, Kacper Poblocki II. Quality Control: Introduction 4. The Taste of Smoke: Bulgartabak and the Manufacturing of Cigarettes and Satisfaction, Mary Neuburger 5. Risky Business: What Was Really Being Sold in the Department Stores of Socialist Eastern Europe?, Patrick Hyder Patterson 6. Material Harmony: The Quest for Quality in Socialist Bulgaria, 1960s-1980s, Rossitza Guentcheva III. Kitchen Talk: Introduction 7. Eating Up Yugoslavia: Cookbooks and Consumption in Socialist Yugoslavia, Wendy Bracewell 8. Grounds for Discontent? Coffee from the Black Market to the Kaffeeklatsch in the GDR, Katherine Pence 9. From Black Caviar to Blackouts: Gender, Consumption, and Lifestyle in Ceausescu's Romania, Jill Massino IV. To Market, To Market... : Introduction 10. The ""Socialist Bourse"": Alcohol, Reputation, and Gender in Romania's Second Economy during the 1980s, Narcis Tulbure 11. The Extraordinary Career of Feketevágo Ur: Wood Theft, Pig-killing, and Entrepreneurship in Communist Hungary, 1948-1956, Karl Brown 12. Keeping It Close to Home: Resourcefulness and Scarcity in Late Socialist and Post-Socialist Poland, Malgorzata Mazurek V. Constructive Criticism : Introduction 13 Kids, Cars, or Cashews?: Debating and Remembering Consumption in Socialist Hungary, Tamas Dombos and Lena Pellandini-Simanyi 14 The House that Socialism Built: Reform, Consumption and Inequality in Postwar Yugoslavia, Brigitte Le Normand 15 Shop Around the Bloc: Trader Tourism and its Discontents on the East German-Polish Border, Mark Keck-Szajbel Index"
Reviews
<br> This rich collection of essays offers a unique look at post-1945 Eastern Europe. Departing from the Cold War narrative of endemic shortages and the gloominess of daily life under communism, the essays highlight the everyday creativity and agency of ordinary people. We follow Eastern Europeans to hard-currency stores and gated communities. We see them cross borders to shop in better-supplied neighboring countries and navigate complex social networks to obtain goods and favors. Situating these stories in the context of transnational modernity rather than a totalizing party state, the book offers a rare combination of new research and a compelling theoretical insight. --Malgorzata Fidelis, University of Illinois at Chicago<p><br> Consumerism in Eastern Europe has become a fertile field for exploring the dreams and delusions of state socialist politics, as well as the agency and resourcefulness of its citizens. Bren and Neuburger's pioneering volume brings together a range of rich and surprising case studies from across the whole region, significantly enriching our understanding of Eastern European social history during the Cold War. --Paul Betts, University of Sussex<p><br>
The essays are consistently readable and insightful, and the editors' introductions to each section help guide readers along the contours of the book's major themes. Highly recommended. --CHOICE This rich collection of essays offers a unique look at post-1945 Eastern Europe. Departing from the Cold War narrative of endemic shortages and the gloominess of daily life under communism, the essays highlight the everyday creativity and agency of ordinary people. We follow Eastern Europeans to hard-currency stores and gated communities. We see them cross borders to shop in better-supplied neighboring countries and navigate complex social networks to obtain goods and favors. Situating these stories in the context of transnational modernity rather than a totalizing party state, the book offers a rare combination of new research and a compelling theoretical insight. --Malgorzata Fidelis, University of Illinois at Chicago Consumerism in Eastern Europe has become a fertile field for exploring the dreams and delusions of state socialist politics, as well as the agency and resourcefulness of its citizens. Bren and Neuburger's pioneering volume brings together a range of rich and surprising case studies from across the whole region, significantly enriching our understanding of Eastern European social history during the Cold War. --Paul Betts, University of Sussex
Author Information
Paulina Bren teaches at Vassar College and is the author of The Greengrocer and His TV: The Culture of Communism after the 1968 Prague Spring. Mary Neuburger is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria and Balkan Smoke: Tobacco and the Making of Modern Bulgaria.
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