The Authority of Everyday Objects

Book excerpt: "Paul Betts first came to my attention through his pioneering article on the post-1945 Bauhaus myth as a joint German-American venture. This book is a landmark study of cultural continuities and ruptures, institutional realignments, and individual careers that introduces a breath of fresh air into a field of research long staled by received ideas. It demonstrates the rewards of approaching the years from 1933 to 1945 as a revealing window onto the subsequent history of West Germany."—Wolfgang Schivelbusch "The Authority of Everyday Objects is a small gem of the new cultural history. This is a work of striking originality and insight that fits the development of industrial design in postwar Germany into the country's broader social, cultural and political history, constructing an analytical narrative that carries from the Third Reich into the Cold War. It illuminates not merely cultural transformation but the wider social history of twentieth-century Germany."—Stanley G. Payne, author of A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 "The Authority of Everyday Objects is a refreshing, innovative, and convincing approach to post-World War II Western consumer society. Design—as a weapon in Cold War competition and as a vehicle for German redemption by revitalizing Bauhaus traditions—is thoroughly researched and wonderfully presented in Paul Betts' book. This well-illustrated work convinces the reader that design was a part of gluecklich Leben ("lucky life") and schoen wohnen ("beautiful living"), and a factor in the politicization of material culture."—Ivan T. Berend, author of Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II and History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century