| Description |
ix, 350 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
1. Introduction: Co-operation and the historians -- Pt. I. Co-operative culture. 2. Education and social transformation. 3. The means of social life. 4. Internationalism. 5. The sense of the past -- Pt. II. Appropriation. 6. The middle-class embrace. 7. Socialists, co-operators and the state -- Pt. III. Containment. 8. The politics of working-class consumption. 9. The experience of defeat |
| Summary |
Consumers' co-operation was an integral part of working-class community life earlier this century. Millions knew their 'divi' number off by heart and the Co-op store was a familiar landmark in most neighbourhoods, particularly in the industrial North. This innovative, research-based book presents a positive critique of the co-operative alternative to emerging capitalist forms of mass consumption in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This alternative was embedded in the culture of the movement and Peter Gurney provides a full analysis of that culture - its strategy and ambition, social and educational forms, internationalism and historical consciousness. The author argues that the dominant 'mode of consumption' which eventually emerged was not inevitable but was the outcome of complex social and economic struggles which historians have only just begun to investigate |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [318]-342) and index |
| Subject |
Consumer cooperatives -- England -- History.
|
|
Consumer cooperatives -- Great Britain -- History.
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| LC no. |
96016160 |
| ISBN |
0719049504 (hardback) |
|
