Jukka Gronow

Stalin's Russia is best known for its political repression, forced collectivization and general poverty. This work presents a different aspect of Stalin's rule - the creation of a luxury goods society.

Karl Kautsky was, for three decades before the First World War, the main authority on the intellectual heritage of Marx and Engels. His interpretation of Marx's Capital and the basic laws and contradictions of capitalism was the reference point for both the foes and allies of Social Democracy.

'Life has become more joyous, comrades.' Josef Stalin, 1936Stalin's Russia is best known for its political repression, forced collectivization and general poverty. Caviar with Champagne presents an altogether different aspect of Stalin's rule that has never been fully analyzed - the creation of a luxury goods society. At the same time as millions were queuing for bread and starving, drastic changes took place in the cultural and economic policy of the country, which had important consequences for the development of Soviet material culture and the promotion of its ideals of consumption.The 1930s witnessed the first serious attempt to create a genuinely Soviet commercial culture that would rival the West. Government ministers took exploratory trips to America to learn about everything from fast food hamburgers to men's suits in Macy's. The government made intricate plans to produce high-quality luxury goods en masse, such as chocolate, caviar, perfume, liquor and assorted novelties. Perhaps the best symbol of this new cultural order was Soviet Champagne, which launched in 1936 with plans to produce millions of bottles by the end of the decade. Drawing on previously neglected archival material, Jukka Gronow examines how such new pleasures were advertised and enjoyed. He interprets Soviet-styled luxury goods as a form of kitsch and examines the ideological underpinnings behind their production.This new attitude toward consumption was accompanied by the promotion of new manners of everyday life. The process was not without serious ideological contradictions. Ironically, a factory worker living in the United States - the largest capitalist society in the world - would have been hard-pressed to afford caviar or champagne for a special occasion in the 1930s, but a Soviet worker theoretically could (assuming supplies were in stock). The Soviet example is unique since the luxury culture had to be created entirely from scratch, and the process was taken extremely serio

The modern society of consumption is a society of fashion. Fashion has extended its influence over various fields of social life and, together with taste, become central to our understanding of the inner dynamics of any modern society.The Sociology of Taste looks at the role of taste - or the aesthetic reflection - in society at large and in modern society in particular. Taking case studies from social life, for example eating and food culture, it illustrates the role of fashion in the formation of collective taste.

Key debates of contemporary cultural sociology – the rise of the ‘cultural omnivore’, the fate of classical ‘highbrow’ culture, the popularization, commercialization and globalization of culture – deal with temporal changes. Yet, systematic research about these processes is scarce due to the lack of suitable longitudinal data. This book explores these questions through the lens of a crucial institution of cultural mediation – the culture sections in quality European newspapers – from 1960 to 2010.Starting from the framework of cultural stratification and employing systematic content analysis both quantitative and qualitative of more than 13,000 newspaper articles, Enter Culture, Exit Arts? presents a synthetic yet empirically rich and detailed account of cultural transformation in Europe over the last five decades. It shows how classifications and hierarchies of culture have changed in course of the process towards increased cultural heterogeneity. Furthermore, it conceptualizes the key trends of rising popular culture and declining highbrow arts as two simultaneous processes: the one of legitimization of popular culture and the other of popularization of traditional legitimate culture, both important for the loosening of the boundary between ‘highbrow’ and ‘popular’.Through careful comparative analysis and illustrative snapshots into the specific socio-historical contexts in which the newspapers and their representations of culture are embedded – in Finland, France, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK – the book reveals the key patterns and diversity of European variations in the transformation of cultural hierarchies since the 1960s. The book is a collective endeavour of a large-scale international research project active between 2013 and 2018.

Kaj Ilmonen was a pioneer in the third wave of the sociology of consumption. This book provides a balanced overview of the sociology of consumption, arguing that the enthusiasm of 'the third wave' exaggerated the role of the symbolic and imaginary at the expense of the materiality of human societies.

The modern society of consumption is a society of fashion. Fashion has extended its influence over various fields of social life and, together with taste, become central to our understanding of the inner dynamics of any modern society.The Sociology of Taste looks at the role of taste - or the aesthetic reflection - in society at large and in modern society in particular. Taking case studies from social life, for example eating and food culture, it illustrates the role of fashion in the formation of collective taste.

During the last two decades, economic sociology has experienced a remarkable revival and has become one of the most innovative fields of sociological research. Shifts in economic policy worldwide have led to the increasing interest in the sociological analysis of economic phenomena and institutions by challenging traditional research questions and demonstrating the limits and problems inherent in standard economic thinking and reasoning.Jukka Gronow's book Deciphering Markets and Money solves the problem of the specific social conditions of an economic order based on money and the equal exchange of commodities. Gronow scrutinizes the relation of sociology to neoclassical economics and reflects on how sociology can contribute to the analyses of the major economic institutions. The question of the comparability and commensuration of economic objects runs through the chapters of the book.The author shows that due to the multidimensionality and principal quality uncertainty of products, markets would collapse without market devices that are either procedural, consisting of technical standards and measuring instruments, or aesthetic, relying on the judgements of taste, or both. In his book, Gronow demonstrates that in this respect, financial markets share the same problem as the markets of, wines, movies, or PCs and mobile phones, and hence offer a highly actual case to study their social constitution in the process of coming into being.Jukka Gronow is professor emeritus of sociology at Uppsala University, Sweden, and docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has published on sociology of consumption, history of sociology and social theory.

Key debates of contemporary cultural sociology – the rise of the ‘cultural omnivore’, the fate of classical ‘highbrow’ culture, the popularization, commercialization and globalization of culture – deal with temporal changes. Yet, systematic research about these processes is scarce due to the lack of suitable longitudinal data. This book explores these questions through the lens of a crucial institution of cultural mediation – the culture sections in quality European newspapers – from 1960 to 2010.Starting from the framework of cultural stratification and employing systematic content analysis both quantitative and qualitative of more than 13,000 newspaper articles, Enter Culture, Exit Arts? presents a synthetic yet empirically rich and detailed account of cultural transformation in Europe over the last five decades. It shows how classifications and hierarchies of culture have changed in course of the process towards increased cultural heterogeneity. Furthermore, it conceptualizes the key trends of rising popular culture and declining highbrow arts as two simultaneous processes: the one of legitimization of popular culture and the other of popularization of traditional legitimate culture, both important for the loosening of the boundary between ‘highbrow’ and ‘popular’.Through careful comparative analysis and illustrative snapshots into the specific socio-historical contexts in which the newspapers and their representations of culture are embedded – in Finland, France, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK – the book reveals the key patterns and diversity of European variations in the transformation of cultural hierarchies since the 1960s. The book is a collective endeavour of a large-scale international research project active between 2013 and 2018.

Kaj Ilmonen was a pioneer in the third wave of the sociology of consumption. This book provides a balanced overview of the sociology of consumption, arguing that the enthusiasm of 'the third wave' exaggerated the role of the symbolic and imaginary at the expense of the materiality of human societies.

Alla människor äter och alla samhällen måste föda sin befolkning. Därav är samhällsvetenskapliga perspektiv för att förstå matens funktioner bortom livsmedlens kemiska sammansättningar och människans biologi nödvändiga. I Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv ges läsaren övergripande ingångar till teoretiska, empiriska och historiska perspektiv där maten i samhället står i fokus. Boken bidrar med viktiga insikter om mat i en tid då utbudet av vetenskaplig, populärvetenskaplig och ovetenskaplig litteratur om kost och hälsa vuxit sig närmast oöverskådligt. Bokens insikter rör matens betydande roll ur flera perspektiv: stadier i vår livscykel, social differentiering mellan grupper, välfärdsstatens framväxt, global handel, arbete inom och utanför hemmet, med mera. Författarna är forskare som är aktiva inom kostvetenskap, sociologi, etnologi, måltidsvetenskap, utbildningsvetenskap och tjänstevetenskap. Mat och ätande: Sociologiska perspektiv bidrar med värdefull läsning oavsett om målet är allmänt intellektuellt förkovrande om matens komplexitet i samhället, framtida arbete med planering av måltider inom offentlig sektor eller restaurangbranschen, nutritionsbehandling av patienter, miljö- och folkhälsoarbete eller utbildning.Boken riktar sig till studenter inom främst kost- och gastronomiutbildningar och hem- och konsumentkunskap, samt till utbildningar där människors matvanor spelar en central roll. Den kan också vara av intresse för studenter inom humaniora och samhällsvetenskap som vill stifta bekantskap med mat- och måltidsområdet.