Politics in Color and Concrete: Socialist Materialities and the Middle Class in Hungary

A historical anthropology of material transformations of homes in Hungary from the 1950s o the 1990s.

Material culture in Eastern Europe under state socialism is remembered as uniformly gray, shabby, and monotonous—the worst of postwar modernist architecture and design. Politics in Color and Concrete revisits this history by exploring domestic space in Hungary from the 1950s through the 1990s and reconstructs the multi-textured and politicized aesthetics of daily life through the objects, spaces, and colors that made up this lived environment. Krisztina Féherváry shows that contemporary standards of living and ideas about normalcy have roots in late socialist consumer culture and are not merely products of postsocialist transitions or neoliberalism. This engaging study decenters conventional perspectives on consumer capitalism, home ownership, and citizenship in the new Europe.

“A major reinterpretation of Soviet-style socialism and an innovative model for analyzing consumption.” —Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

“Politics in Color and Concrete explains why the everyday is important, and shows why domestic aesthetics embody a crucially significant politics.” —Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago

“The topic is extremely timely and relevant; the writing is lucid and thorough; the theory is complex and sophisticated without being overly dense, or daunting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.” —Brad Weiss, College of William and Mary