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Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London's West End

(Paperback)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London's West End

Contributors:

By (Author) Erika Rappaport

ISBN:

9780691044767

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Publication Date:

19th November 2001

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Retail and wholesale industries
Social and cultural history
European history

Dewey:

381.10942132

Prizes:

Commended for North American Council on British Studies British Council Prize 2001

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

344

Dimensions:

Width 152mm, Height 235mm

Weight:

510g

Description

In Shopping for Pleasure, Erika Diane Rappaport reconstructs London's Victorian and Edwardian West End as an entertainment and retail center. In this neighborhood of stately homes, royal palaces, and spacious parks and squares, a dramatic transformation unfolded that ultimately changed the meaning of femininity and the lives of women, shaping their experience of modernity, Rappaport illustrates the various forces of the period that encouraged and discouraged women's enjoyment of public life and particularly shows how shopping came to be seen as the quintessential leisure activity for middle- and upper-class women. This book is both a social and cultural history of the West End, but on a broader scale it reveals the essential interplay between the rise of consumer society, the birth of modern femininity, and the making of contemporary London.

Reviews

Honorable Mention for the 2001 British Council Prize, sponsored by the North American Conference on British Studies "A fascinating look at the origins of the female shopping species in London's West End during the Victorian and Edwardian times. Rappaport's central hypothesis is heartening: Shopping, for necessities and for pleasure, was a key factor in getting domestically cloistered women out of the house and into town on their own... The pleasures of shopping were liberating in profound ways..."--Gerri Hirshey, Mirabella "A thoughtful and accessible study that illuminates the period in a new and colorful way."--Lynne Truss, Sunday Times (London) "Living in an era of unprecedented prosperity it is interesting, not to mention instrumental, to be aware of how other societies reacted to the onset of a commercial boom. Shopping for Pleasure not only illuminates the growth of late-19th-century London, but it sheds light on our own gratuitously materialistic culture."--Lucy Moore, Washington Times "'A Pleasure' accurately describes the experience of reading this deft, rich analysis of how the West End became an enticing shopping Mecca for bourgeois women..."--Choice "A fascinating as well as an erudite book ...The rise of modern shopping opened the city streets to respectable women, and played a significant role in both feminism and consumer culture"--Elaine Showalter, London Review of Books "The rise of modern shopping opened the city streets to respectable women and played a significant role in both feminism and consumer culture... A fascinating as well as an erudite book."--Elaine Showalter, London Review of Books "[An] intriguing study... Shopping for Pleasure creatively explores an assortment of conflicts about women's natures and desires that, together, constructed Victorian and Edwardian merchandising and consuming."--Pamela Walker Laird, Enterprise & Society "In her engaging and intriguing book, Erika Rappaport ... has done an excellent job of showing how the consumer culture of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London was created, in large part, by the emancipated woman's active agency... Rappaport's book is one of those displays that are so attractive and enticing that they leave the insatiable customer wanting even more."--Theodore Koditschenk, Journal of Modern History "A well-constructed and presented book, making imaginative use of an impressive range of primary and secondary sources."--Rex Pope, Urban History

Author Bio

Erika Rappaport is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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