Karl Gerth, "Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

Karl Gerth, "Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

Karl Gerth’s new book, Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) details how the state created brands, promoted and advertised particular products, set up department stores, and facilitated the promotion of certain luxury consumer products (notably wristwatches, bicycles, and sewing machines)—all in the Mao era. Though not typically considered to be a period of Chinese history driven by consumerism, Gerth’s beautifully researched book shows how, in the early People’s Republic, the Communist Party expanded consumerism and built ‘state capitalism’, and the ferocity of consumer impulses and behaviors that followed. Challenging, provocative, and precisely written, Unending Capitalism is sure to appeal to anyone interested in modern Chinese history and histories of capitalism, as well as any readers looking for a book that uses some really fascinating sources to complicate the dominant narrative of China’s ‘socialist’ history. Sarah Bramao-Ramos is a PhD candidate at Harvard University. She works on Manchu language books and book history and loves anything with a good kesike in it. She can be reached at sbramaoramos@g.harvard.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

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Mercedes Valmisa, "All Things Act" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Mercedes Valmisa, "All Things Act" (Oxford UP, 2025)

All Things Act explores the collective character of action to expand the ways we think about agency. First, it resists viewing agency as a capacity, much less one exclusive to humans. Instead, it defi...

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Dagmar Herzog, "The New Fascist Body" (Wirklichkeit Books, 2025)

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Matthijs Lok, "Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Making of the Past" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Matthijs Lok, "Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Making of the Past" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Contemporary Europe seems to be divided between progressive cosmopolitans sympathetic to the European Union and the ideals of the Enlightenment, and counter-enlightened conservative nationalists extol...

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J. Logan Smilges, "Crip Negativity" (U of Minnesota Press, 2023)

J. Logan Smilges, "Crip Negativity" (U of Minnesota Press, 2023)

In the thirty years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, the lives of disabled people have not improved nearly as much as activists and politicians had hoped. In Crip Negativ...

10 Jan 57min

Caitlin Vincent, "Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)

Caitlin Vincent, "Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)

How can cultural industries survive in the twenty-first century? In Opera Wars Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future Caitlin Vincent, a Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries at the...

9 Jan 40min

Keidrick Roy, "American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Keidrick Roy, "American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Though the United States has been heralded as a beacon of democracy, many nineteenth-century Americans viewed their nation through the prism of the Old World. What they saw was a racially stratified c...

8 Jan 51min

Thomas Albert Howard, "Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History" (Yale UP, 2025)

Thomas Albert Howard, "Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History" (Yale UP, 2025)

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7 Jan 45min

Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism with Thea Riofrancos

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Lithium, a crucial input in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has the potential to save the world from climate change. But even green solutions come at a cost. Mining lithium is environmentall...

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