Ralph Jessen, Lydia Nembach-Langer, eds. Transformations of Retailing in Europe after 1945. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Pub., 2012. xvi + 234 pp. GBP 74.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4094-2444-4; ISBN 978-1-4094-2445-1.
Reviewed by Robert P. Stephens (Virginia Tech)
Published on H-German (April, 2015)
Commissioned by Chad Ross
A Close Examination of Postwar Retailing
In Transformations of Retailing in Europe after 1945, editors Ralph Jessen and Lydia Langer have collected a remarkable group of contributions from a variety of fields that provide a valuable addition to the ever-growing literature on the history of consumption. Building on the substantial literature on consumption in the twentieth century, Jessen and Langer offer a set of articles that delves deeply into specific topics and provides a fine-grained analysis of how the practices of distribution actually transformed the trade in goods in Europe after the catastrophe of the Second World War.
The introduction by Jessen and Langer offers a helpful and perceptive overview of the debates over consumption in the postwar period. While placing the changes in retailing in a larger historical context, Jessen and Langer see a "history of 'revolutionary' upheavals in retailing as part of the history of post-war reconstruction in Western Europe" (p. 3). The authors acknowledge the prominence of "Americanization" in both the academic debates over changing patterns of getting and spending and the perceptions and interpretations of those who experienced these changes firsthand. Yet, like many others, they do not see Americanization as a sufficient explanation in itself. Instead, they approach the methodological questions by focusing on "transfer, comparison and periodization" (p. 8). They see the transfer of North American models as multiple forms of "hybridization," pointing to the differing rates and bilateral flows that varied across the continent. To understand these differences, they posit that we must look at internal European comparisons to understand how structures of retailing played out quite differently from country to country, and even region to region, while recognizing the ongoing homogenization of European retailing practices. Similarly, in the periodization of the "revolution" in retail, they acknowledge the importance of the war and reconstruction, but they caution that the "specific mix of continuity and discontinuity within the individual European countries" matters. In order to provide a framework for the volume, Jessen and Langer identify eight organizing topics: the structure of business; economic aspects; commodification; stakeholders; spatial dimensions; technology; the history of knowledge; and cultural history. In all, I found the introduction helpful in rethinking the specificities of retailing and would recommend it for anyone studying the history of consumption in Europe. The notes in themselves offer an excellent introduction to the existing literature.
The volume includes thirteen chapters that run the gamut from supermarkets to slot machines, to sex shops, to frozen fish. As with all collected volumes, the quality of the contributions varies; yet, on the whole, I found even topics that first struck me as esoteric to be helpful in reframing the issues. Indeed, it is the fine-grained approach that characterizes most of the chapters that lends weight to the larger picture of a "revolution" in retailing.
Frank Trentmann, building on his distinguished research on consumption, opens the volume with a broad conceptual chapter entitled "Consumer Society Revisited: Affluence, Choice and Diversity." Playing off of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1958), Trentmann warns of the dangers of seeing the postwar period as merely a manifestation of "affluence and rampant individualism." He argues that affluence as ideology preceded the postwar period and that the relationship of affluence to production and debt is more varied than Galbraith's thesis would lead us to believe. Choice, likewise, must be seen, according to Trentmann, within a "biodiversity of consumer society." Americanization does not provide an adequate framework because "all modern mass ideologies promised their supporters a better life and developed strategies to harness consumption to their particular ends." He argues instead that markets must be seen as long-term changes in "socio-political mentalities" (p. 23). Perhaps most importantly, Trentmann points to the diversity of retailing as a clear signal that we should be cautious about overarching theories of Americanization. He points to the growing diversification of leisure in the United States as evidence of the perils of seeing consumption as a fundamentally homogenizing force.
In part 1, the next four chapters focus on the introduction of self-service and supermarkets to the European market. Gareth Shaw, Adrian Bailey, Andrew Alexander, Dawn Nell, and Jane Hamlett share the results of two large projects on British consumers: one on the development of the supermarket, and the other on changing consumer practices. The first shows quantitatively how the shift to supermarkets only took place after the end of austerity, with the bulk of the transformation occurring after the mid-1960s. The second uses survey data to illustrate how the resulting modifications to shopping practices were haphazard as many consumers adopted a "selective model" that included some supermarket shopping along with an ongoing relationship with older specialty markets.
In chapter 3, Emanuela Scarpellini presents a very different retailing landscape in postwar Italy where "the extremely fragmented structure of commerce provided formidable economic, social, cultural and even political resistance to the inroads of larger-scale retail trade" (p. 55). She examines three different forms of self-service in Italy: a financial model that integrated foodstuffs into existing department store chains; a progressive model in which small stores sought to adopt self-service models and diversify into minimarkets; and an associative model based on cooperatives. All of these forms struggled with distribution chains, local opposition, and customer habits. Ultimately, she argues, the high barriers to rapid expansion both in terms of capital and politics led to "a combination of market law and political corporativism" (p. 68). Scarpellini's contribution is significant because she is able to show with specific examples why changing consumption patterns differed so drastically within Europe.
Lydia Langer's analysis of the transatlantic transfer to West Germany presents a quite different story in Northern Europe. Like many in this volume, Langer rejects a pure Americanization thesis and instead argues that we ought to see the implementation of self-service as "complex constructions compromising a combination of American, national and local elements" (p. 77). She contends that instead of cultural and commercial transfer, we should examine the "conduits of knowledge" that shuttled ideas back and forth across the Atlantic. For Langer, the most important factors for the emergence of self-service in Germany were the fundamental changes in the modes of distribution that acted to integrate the European market more widely. This focus on frameworks of distribution as a key aspect in explaining the transformation of retailing deserves attention and further research, and it serves as a theme that comes up repeatedly in parts 2 and 3 of this volume.
Jan Logemann's comparison of West German and American retailing offers a welcome rejoinder that is missing in most of the other articles in this volume. He reminds us that rather than focusing exclusively on the Americanization of European practices, we should be mindful of the continued divergence of trends in the two countries. While West German retailers began to introduce efficiencies like self-service, the American market continued to innovate, moving toward the suburbanization and centralization of retailing. Urban public policies diverged as West Germany instituted anti-rebate mandates, reduced shop-opening hours, and used planning and zoning practices to forestall this kind of suburbanization. Likewise, consumer practices in West Germany stymied Americanization. West German consumers continued to value quality and price differently than their American counterparts. Longemann's contribution is valuable because it concretely refuses to adopt a static model of American development that could then be transferred to Europe and insists on "transnational transfers without convergence" (p. 99).
Part 2 of the volume focuses on modes of distribution and technologies of trade. Angelika Epple begins part 2 with a fascinating, if brief, history of vending machines. She argues that the spread of vending machines was crucial to not only the standardization of products, but also that "the technical reproducibility of tastes and product quality made self-service a success" (p. 112).
Richard Coopey examines the history of mail order retailing in Britain to make a larger point about fundamental and critical changes in the provision and function of credit in the new economy. He traces the rise of the "agency system" of determining credit worthiness through a network of community agents and its eventual transformation into computerized credit ratings agencies. In the end, he laments the loss of community and the rise of the "depersonalized world of modern credit as a loss of moral responsibility for the social chaos they [firms] often leave in their wake" (p. 126).
Elizabeth Heineman's excellent chapter uses the story of Beate Uhse to trace the commercialization of sex in West Germany. It is a valuable introduction to her work, but readers should take the opportunity to refer to her book Before Porn was Legal: The Erotic Empire of Beate Uhse (2011) for a fuller rendering of this important topic.
Ralf Banken offers a rich quantitative history of department stores in West Germany during the postwar period. His careful tabulations show the rise and slow fall of the economic power of department stores. To explain the structural deficits of these retailing behemoths since 1970, Banken points to high costs, mismanagement, failed restructuring within the sector, and their capacious strategy of many goods under one roof as the causes for their relative decline. He sees the failures of business as structural, but I wonder if a complementary cultural explanation would flesh out this argument.
Part 3 focuses squarely on technological innovations in the retailing sector. Stefan Schwartzkopf takes direct aim at the tendency to see marketing and market research as an American import, as the phalanx of Americanization. He points instead to a longer tradition of European social science research that he dates to the interwar period. He sees political liberalism and social democracy as the wellspring for European marketing practices, rather than American enterprise ideology. In the end, by the 1980s, this older tradition had been replaced by a "statistical priesthood of an affluent society," dominated by a few large research firms (p. 177). Schwartzkopf notes that more comparative research on national market research cultures needs to be done; from this, perhaps a more nuanced picture of the multiple paths to knowledge about consumers will come to light.
Karin Zachmann's research into piscine irradiation and Terje Finstad's investigation of frozen fish distribution both highlight the role of technological innovation in the larger distribution landscape of the postwar world. While the efforts to stabilize fish through irradiation failed, the expansion of frozen food proceeded apace. Taken together, these two chapters illustrate the challenges of creating a functioning distribution model for the new self-service market.
Finally, Annika Menke claims that the introduction of computerization and barcodes effectively transformed the whole of the retailing trade beginning in the 1970s. This process, as she point out, was fraught, as different standards competed for mass implementation. The barcode revolution led to a shift from "a supply-oriented logic to a distribution-oriented one" (p. 223). In the end, retailers turned from individual and particular needs to a data-driven model that brought us into a postindustrial era.
Taken separately, these chapters would make fine journal articles that would push the field forward incrementally. Yet together they take on added weight. The history of consumption and of retailing is now a developed field. This book makes a real contribution because it carries through with what many have long asked for: specific examples of particular aspects of larger trends. The careful research and the tight focus of these chapters offer a nuanced image of the haphazard tendencies in the retail trade. While it is not novel to take on the Americanization thesis--as most of these chapters do--it is something else to focus in and show exactly how this cultural transfer model falls short. Everyone interested in the development of the retail trade, the history of consumption, or the debate over Americanization ought to add this book to their list of required reading.
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Citation:
Robert P. Stephens. Review of Jessen, Ralph; Nembach-Langer, Lydia, eds., Transformations of Retailing in Europe after 1945.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
April, 2015.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=39759
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