Cover image for Consumption and Violence : Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany
Consumption and Violence : Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany
Title:
Consumption and Violence : Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany
Author:
Sedlmaier, Alexander
ISBN:
mpub.6713536

9780472120543
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 20141013
Abstract:
Combining the tools of political, social, cultural, and intellectual history, Consumption and Violence: Radical Protest in Cold-War West Germany explores strategies of legitimization developed by advocates of militant resistance to certain manifestations of consumer capitalism. The book contributes to a more sober evaluation of West German protest movements, not just terrorism, as it refrains from emotional and moral judgments, but takes the protesters' approaches seriously, which, regarding consumer society, had a rational core. Political violence is not presented as the result of individual shortcomings, but emerges in relation to major societal changes, i.e., the unprecedented growth of consumption. This new perspective sheds important light on violence and radical protest in post-war Germany, as previous books have failed to examine to what extent these forms of resistance should be regarded as reactions to changing regimes of provision.
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