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Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement. By Matthew Hilton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xiii + 382 pp. Index, notes, bibliography, illustrations. Cloth, $70.00; paper, $27.99. ISBN: cloth, 0-521-83129-6; paper, 0-521-53853-X.
For far too long, claims Matthew Hilton, historians of twentieth-century Britain-unlike those chronicling early-modern Britain or the United States of America-have studied consumerism and politics separately, on the assumption, implicit or explicit, that they are mutually exclusive. Such an approach, he believes, is deeply misguided. He means to put it right: "As a history of organised consumer movements and consumer politics, this book is an attempt to re-politicise consumerism, both as a category of analysis and a field of historical study" (p. 5).
Hilton's focus on the organized consumer movement makes good sense, given our current understanding of consumption, consumerism, and the emergence of a so-called consumer society in twentieth-century Britain. His detailed analysis of developments across a wide range of political, consumer, business, trade-union, and women's organizations is exceptionally impressive. It enables him, in particular, to identify a new chronology of consumption. He discerns a fundamental distinction between the first and second halves of the century, the former dominated by the politics of what he...