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Informationen zum Autor Peter Gurney teaches British Social History at the University of Essex Klappentext Nineteenth-century England witnessed the birth of capitalist consumerism. Early department stores, shopping arcades and provision shops of all kinds proliferated from the start of the Victorian period, testimony to greater diffusion of consumer goods. However, while the better off enjoyed having more material things, masses of the population were wanting even the basic necessities of life during the 'Hungry Forties' and well beyond.This book argues that the emergence of modern consumerism was not merely a neutral and progressive transformation but involved heated political contests between different historical alternatives, which were based on competing visions of economy and society. Based on a wealth of contemporary evidence and adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Wanting and having focuses particularly on the making of the working-class consumer between the First and Second Reform Acts, in order to shed new light on key areas of major historical interest, including Chartism, the Anti-Corn Law League, the New Poor Law, popular liberalism and humanitarianism.By returning to the fraught gestation of consumer society in Victorian England, Wanting and having urges us to consider whether we can change our practice as consumers in any fundamental way unless we also radically revise our practice as citizens. It will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in the origins and significance of consumerism across a range of disciplines, including social and cultural history, literary studies, historical sociology and politics. Zusammenfassung Based on a wealth of contemporary evidence and adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Wanting and having focuses particularly on the making of the working-class consumer in order to shed new light on key areas of major historical interest, including Chartism, the Anti-Corn Law League, the New Poor Law, popular liberalism and humanitarianism. -- . Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. 'A new order of things': mapping popular politics onto consumption2. 'Rejoicing in potatoes': the politics of consumption during the 'Hungry Forties'3. 'The Andover Cannibalism': popular entitlement and the New Poor Law4. 'Yours in the cause of Democracy': democratic discourse and the Chartist challenge5. 'Consumers of their own productions': popular radicalism and consumer organising6. 'Please, sir, I want some more': Dickens on working-class scarcity and middle-class excess7. 'The Sublime of the Bazaar': the religion of free trade and the making of modern consumerism8. 'The lion turned into a lamb': the consumer politics of popular liberalismIndexEpilogue: 'The Age of Veneer': the limits of liberal consumerism...
