Historicizing Lifestyle: Mediating Taste, Consumption and Identity from the 1900s to 1970s

This original volume examines issues of taste, media and lifestyle from a historical perspective. Focusing specifically on the 1900s to 1970s the volume provides empirical evidence on key debates in the field from a cross-national perspective between the UK and US. The case studies, including 'Good Housekeeping' and 'Playboy', explore the continuities and discontinuities between the past and present to provide a better understanding about the representation of lifestyle and its relationship to the self. Analysis of how ideas about lifestyle have been mediated in particular times and places is also provided. The first part of the volume demonstrates how ideas about gender, nation and 'race' problematize some of the taken-for-granted assumptions about lifestyle, followed by a focus on the new middle classes in the US. The final part of the volume looks at the role of advertising and marketing in mediating ideas about lifestyle. The contributors also explore the role of material culture in the construction of cultural hierarchies and the positioning of social groups within wider cartographies of taste. The volume makes a significant contribution to this growing field and is of interest to academics and students in media and cultural studies, communication studies, cultural history, and sociology.