Over the semester we will seek to answer the following questions: How has the meaning of buying and possessing stuff changed over the last two hundred years? How were modern urban spaces shaped around the twin delights of consumption and leisure? How did consumer culture become a source of class distinction, identity formation, gendered stereotypes, and creative expression? What role did consumer culture play in promoting European imperial and colonial projects and resisting empire? In the postwar era, how did modernization and Americanization change European consumer habits?