| Publication |
2014.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
THE FALL OF THE BERLINWALL IN 1989, THE REUNIFICATION OF GERMANY a year later, and unlimited access granted to scholars to former East German archives in the aftermath of these momentous events, enabled the publication from the mid-1990s onwards of the first exhibition catalogues, monographs, journal articles and edited collections on the subject of consumption in the GDR (Merkel &Mu¨hlberg 1996; Zatlin 1997, 1999; Merkel 1998, 1999; Kaminsky 2001; Heldmann 2001; Poutrus 2002). While many of these works were initially written in German, less than a decade later, during the 2000s, a bourgeoning literature looking at key aspects of East German consumption emerged in English as well (Crew 2003; Stitziel 2005; Landsman 2005; Zatlin 2007; Rubin 2008, 2009). Inspired by some pioneering studies such as those of Jonathan Zatlin and Ina Merkel, the new works emphasised the close relationship between the party-state and the consumer desires of millions of citizens in the GDR. Be it about acquiring a Trabant, modern furniture, plastic goods, fashionable shoes and dresses, and even owning expensive collections of erotic photographs (McLellan 2009), such manifestations of individual consumer desires spoke about the centrality of consumption as practice, expectation and social imaginary in the lives of East Germans. After their strong focus on the former GDR, scholars of consumption under communism have lately shifted their interest to an examination of socialist consumerism in the Eastern
Bloc as a whole. The books under review here are the most recent manifestations of this shift. Through their wider geographic coverage, the three books discussed in this article further expand on and provide nuance to what we already know about the avatars of consumption under communism.
|