HISTORICIZING LIFESTYLE: MEDIATING TASTE, CONSUMPTION AND IDENTITY FROM THE 1900S TO 1970S; ED. BY DAVID BELL

Lifestyles have a history, and lifestyle media is fundamentally implicated in this history. This original volume examines issues of taste, media and lifestyle from the 1900s to 1970s, providing a wealth of empirical evidence and debate from varied international perspectives. Including examples as diverse as 'Good Housekeeping' and 'Playboy', it explores the continuities and discontinuities between the past and present to provide a better understanding of the representation of lifestyle and its relationship to the self. The volume demonstrates how ideas about gender, nation and 'race' problematize taken-for-granted assumptions about lifestyle, with particular emphasis on the new middle classes in the US. The book also examines the role of advertising and marketing in mediating ideas about lifestyle, the role of material culture in the construction of cultural hierarchies and the positioning of social groups within wider cartographies of taste. The volume makes a significant contribution to this growing field and will interest academics and students in media and cultural studies, communication studies, cultural history and sociology. This Volume Examines Issues Of Taste, Media And Lifestyle From A Historical Perspective. The Contributors Seek To Show How 'lifestyle' As A Concept And As A Set Of Practices Has Evolved Over Time, Progressively Over-writing 'tradition'. Focusing Specifically On The 1900s To 1970s The Volume Provides Empirical Evidence On Key Debates In The Field From A Cross-national Perspective Between The Uk And Us. The Case Studies, Including Good Housekeeping And Playboy, Explore The Continuities And Discontinuities Between The Past And Present To Provide A Better Understanding About The Representation Of Lifestyle And Its Relationship To The Self. Analysis Of How Ideas About Lifestyle Have Been Mediated In Particular Times And Places Is Also Provided. The Volume Makes A Significant Contribution To This Growing Field And Is Of Interest To Academics And Students In Media And Cultural Studies, Communication Studies, Cultural History, And Sociology.--jacket. Towards A History Of Lifestyle / David Bell And Joanne Hollows -- Science And Spells : Cooking, Lifestyle And Domestic Femininities In British Good Housekeeping In The Inter-war Period / Joanne Hollows -- The Restaurant Guide As Romance : From Raymond Postgate To Florence White / Janet Floyd -- Presenting The Black Middle Class : John H. Johnson And Ebony Magazine, 1945-1974 / Jason Chambers -- The Politics Of Playboy : Lifestyle, Sexuality And Non-conformity In American Cold War Culture / Mark Jancovich -- Rapture Of The Deep : Leisure, Lifestyle And The Lure Of Sixties Scuba / Bill Osgerby -- Lifestyle Print Culture And The Mediation Of Everyday Life : From Dispersing Images To Caring Texts / Sam Binkley -- Depression And Recovery : Self-help And America In The 1930s / Sue Currell -- Pushing Pneus: Michelin's Advertising Of Lifestyle In Pre-world War I France / Stephen L. Harp -- Creating Modern Tendencies : The Symbolic Economics Of Furnishing / Tracey Potts. Edited By David Bell, Joanne Hollows. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 9 Notes on Contributors......Page 10 1 Towards a History of Lifestyle......Page 12 2 Science and Spells: Cooking, Lifestyle and Domestic Femininities in British Good Housekeeping in the Inter-war Period......Page 32 3 The Restaurant Guide as Romance: From Raymond Postgate to Florence White......Page 52 4 Presenting the Black Middle Class: John H. Johnson and Ebony Magazine, 1945-1974......Page 65 5 The Politics of Playboy: Lifestyle, Sexuality and Non-conformity in American Cold War Culture......Page 81 6 Rapture of the Deep: Leisure, Lifestyle and the Lure of Sixties Scuba......Page 99 7 Lifestyle Print Culture and the Mediation of Everyday Life: From Dispersing Images to Caring Texts......Page 119 8 Depression and Recovery: Self-Help and America in the 1930s......Page 142 9 Pushing Pneus: Michelin’s Advertising of Lifestyle in Pre-World War I France......Page 156 10 Creating ‘Modern Tendencies’: The Symbolic Economics of Furnishing......Page 167 C......Page 184 F......Page 185 L......Page 186 P......Page 187 U......Page 188 Y......Page 189 Since the 1980s, it has increasingly been claimed that there has been an explosion of lifestyle media across a range of forms such as magazines and television (see Bell and Hollows, 2005).