Cohen breaks the work down into four distinct parts. First, she focuses on "The Origins of The Postwar Consumers' Republic", which argues that the growth of consumer culture arose from a mostly historical perspective. Cohen examines mass consumption's roots and argues that they came out of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Of this period Cohen writes, "Hard times forced many Americans to struggle to find and keep work, to feed their families, and to …show more content…
This section focuses heavily on the concept of "reconversion", which encouraged American families to re-think their ideas of middle-class comforts and expectations, as well as push the notion that consumption was not only selfish, but charitable. In so doing, "reconversion" tidily relates the "new postwar order" with consumerism. Cohen uses the example of a 1947 Life Magazine article which encourages families to "buy more for itself to better the living of others."[2] This section argues that the integration of consumerism with everyday American life was viewed as crucial both for prosperity as a nation and as an