| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Lizabeth Cohen. A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Pp. 567. $35.00.

This book by Lizabeth Cohen tells a compelling story. It interweaves a number of narrative lines to produce a picture of America's postwar infatuation with mass consumption. Separately, some of the stories are familiar and may remind readers of the older critiques of "the affluent society" by authors such as David Riesman, Vance Packard, David Potter, John Kenneth Galbraith, or Daniel J. Boorstin, some of whom the author mentions. In most cases, Cohen manages to give a particular twist to these various stories. Her focus is on the citizens of the American republic in their roles as consumers. If in the postwar period they all shared a dream, it was one of democracy not only in the political marketplace but in the economic marketplace as well. There the dream was one of affluence and prosperity shared equally by all.

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