Journal of Modern European History 10 (2012), 2

Mass culture is a common concept, yet it is hard to grasp. So far, historians have either considered it as an object of cultural criticism or have concentrated on the rise of individual mass cultural phenomena such as cinema, leisure or the press. This volume suggests a different approach: It seeks to conceptualize mass culture as an embodiment of the intrinsic ambivalence of modernity and to scrutinize the changing perceptions of mass culture as genuine historical forces. Historians from different countries present national narratives but they also integrate their findings into a European perspective by following a shared analytical approach. Special attention is given to changing mass semantics, constructionist attitudes to the “problem” of mass culture and practical attempts at the renewal of (mass) cultural modernity.

Mass Culture as Modernity. European Perceptions, 1900-1980
Edited by Stefanie Middendorf and Ulrich Herbert

Stefanie Middendorf: Mass Culture as Modernity. Introductory Thoughts

Orsi Husz: The Morality of Quality. Assimilating Material Mass Culture in Twentieth-Century Sweden

Stefanie Middendorf: Organisierte Modernität? Konstruktion und Konzeption der Massenkultur in Frankreich

Stefano Cavazzo: Twisted Roots. Intellectuals, Mass Culture and Political Culture in Italy

Christian Noack: «A Mighty Weapon in the Class War»: Proletarian Values, Tourism and Mass Mobilisation in Stalin’s Time

Article

Sören Urbansky: The Unfathomable Foe. Constructing the Enemy in the Sino-Soviet Borderlands, ca. 1969–1982