The Consumer on the Home Front Second World War Civilian Consumption in Comparative Perspective

The term 'home front' gained currency during the First World War and was closely associated with the idea of 'total war' - it encapsulated the blurred lines between the armies fighting in the field and the civilian societies at home. It became one of the most consequential elements in Second World War strategic thinking, entailing an unparalleled degree of civilian mobilization. And the legacies of the home fronts reached far beyond 1945: the war became a crucial catalyst for broader social developments, including the emergence of mass consumer societies in the twentieth century. This volume explores the history of the home fronts in the Second World War from a comparative and transnational perspective, focusing on the role of the consumer and civilian morale in Nazi Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The volume covers a wide range of aspects. It compares the belligerents' efforts in securing civilian food and nutrition. It analyses the role of advertising and commercial entertainment in creating 'virtual consumption' to compensate for wartime hardships. It highlights fashion as a means of offering distraction and promoting promises of future consumption. And it enquires into the impact of the wartime consumer regimes on the post-war period and long-term developments. This collection of ground-breaking international research will advance scholarship at various levels. It will contribute to our understanding of the entanglements between war and society in the twentieth century. And it will introduce a more holistic transnational perspective that aims to integrate the Second World War into the thriving historiography on mass consumption.