Luxus und Konsum: Eine historische Annaherung (review)

In recent years, consumption has attracted an exceptional amount of scholarly attention. Studies of consumption have been marked by a proliferation of interdisciplinary approaches—bringing together historians of many kinds with sociologists, anthropologists, economists, and literary critics—and reflecting the reality that consumption is a central part of social life. In the introduction to Luxus und Konsum Reinhold Reith remarks: "On the one hand we must consume; consumption is a vital necessity. On the other hand, not everything that we consume is a vital necessity" (pp. 9–10).

The essays in this volume, which derive from a conference at Salzburg University in 2000, address the historical relationship between consumption and luxury. They draw particular attention to the ways in which moral evaluations have changed significantly over time. They also show that, once the Industrial Revolution was under way, perceptions of many things once considered superfluous began to change and they gradually acquired the status of necessities. Indeed, changing definitions of necessity and luxury underpin the transition to societies of affluence.

Luxus und Konsum ranges chronologically from the early modern period to the present day. The geographical focus is on German-speaking lands, although the volume begins with an overview by Ranier Beck that takes in both Great Britain and the United States. Ulrich Wyrwa offers a tour de force in intellectual history, locating the terms "consumption" and "luxury" in changing historical contexts. Torsten Meyer discusses ways in which early-modern political economists evaluated consumption, while Christoph Maria Merki's topic is the shifting categorization of coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, and alcohol.

The ensuing five chapters present case studies of individual artifacts or modes of consumption. Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum tells how moral interpretations of watches and clocks endowed timepieces with a highly ambivalent symbolic character during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Wolfgang König charts the history of the automobile from a luxury to a necessity with strong status connotations. Günter Bayerl's consideration of water supply and consumption, especially in the twentieth century, is followed by a close reading of the Salzburg Festival, an annual cultural extravaganza that has lured the rich and famous to a small Alpine city since the 1920s. The final case study concerns the history of the department store in Austria.

Essays in the closing section include Hans-Peter Müller's consideration of luxury in working-class lifestyles, Ina Merkel's exploration of the tensions between egalitarian promises and popular demands for luxuries in socialist East Germany, and Ernst Harnisch's reflections on the effects of proliferating consumerism on Christian beliefs in affluent societies. These and the other essays are concisely written and tightly argued, and they illustrate the range of approaches that can be brought to bear on the study of consumption. But even though the theoretically informed essays by Wyrwa and Merkel stand out for their intellectual discipline, it remains unclear what general message the editors wish to send. In the introduction they express a desire "to contribute to the field of research by dealing with the social phenomenon 'consumption' from a broad historical perspective" (p. 21). But they miss the chance to explain how their selection of essays actually moves the field forward. Regrettably, it is left to the reader to reflect on the ways in which these stimulating pieces connect, and to consider how historians of technology, who are prominent throughout the book, can enrich the field.