Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870-1930

Consumers' co-operation was an integral part of working-class community life earlier this century. Millions knew their 'divi' number off by heart and the Co-op store was a familiar landmark in most neighbourhoods, particularly in the industrial North. This innovative, research-based book presents a positive critique of the co-operative alternative to emerging capitalist forms of mass consumption in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This alternative was embedded in the culture of the movement and Peter Gurney provides a full analysis of that culture - its strategy and ambition, social and educational forms, internationalism and historical consciousness. The author argues that the dominant 'mode of consumption' which eventually emerged was not inevitable but was the outcome of complex social and economic struggles which historians have only just begun to investigate.