Paul Lerner's new book is an impressive scholarly accomplishment and a splendid contribution to modern Jewish and German history, as well as to the study of consumer capitalism. It successfully builds on previous studies that underline the role of department stores in what Lerner calls “the consumer revolution” in Germany. This body of work did not entirely overlook the prominent position of Jewish businessmen in the development of department stores, yet Lerner's study is the first to provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between Jews and the new “consuming temples.” It is not merely a history of Jewish involvement in business, then, or a history of the Jewish contribution to modern retailing and consumer culture. What Lerner has written is a cultural history that examines how Jews were represented and seen as a financially powerful minority in the great era of German department stores. In so doing, it challenges some basic conventions of historical writing on, and readings of, German history.

Given traditional notions of primary and secondary materials, some historians feel uncomfortable using fiction as a historical source, yet Lerner's book is mainly based on novels. Informing this challenging selection of sources is the idea that reality shapes discourse as much as discourse shapes reality. This approach sets the ground for a stimulating reading of scholarly debates about alleged German “difference.” At the outset of his study, Lerner postulates that Jews owned more department stores in Germany, and that the association between the two were stronger in Germany than anyway else. He then notes that, in contrast to France, Britain, and the United States, the non-Jewish German response to department stores was tinged with particular venom against capitalism and modernity. According to Lerner, this association between Jews and department stores, coupled with the strong resentment against both as alleged agents of modernity, set Germans apart from the citizens of other nations. This notion of a German Sonderweg is subsequently explored in the book's five chapters, each of which deals with different aspects of the department store as a microcosm for broader social, economic, and cultural debates, demonstrating how this discourse was linked to images of Jews and anxieties about Jewish power.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the history of department stores and the prominent role Jews played in their development. It shows how modern, anti-department store discourse mobilized age-old images of Jews as vendors and speculators making their fortune on the backs of working people. Chapter 2 deals with the grand department store as a place of international traffic in goods, people, and styles. It was here, Lerner suggests, that the image of the Jew as “international capitalist” became institutionalized. Chapter 3 offers illuminating insights into the supposedly uncanny power of department stores over women, while Chapter 4 moves the discussion from the big city to the provinces. Focusing on the S. Schocken chain from Chemnitz as a case study, Lerner links Salman Schocken's modernism with his anti-assimilationist and Zionist convictions. Just as the department store was used by Schocken to challenge old business practices and develop innovative retailing methods, Zionism offered him the opportunity to rebuke the German-Jewish establishment and to experiment with new ideas about Jewishness. The final chapter addresses the question of violence against department stores, and it is here that the issue of the relationship between the real and the imagined is most pertinent. At the center of the discussion is the risk of fire in the grand department store, which was high: it is thus no wonder that the mass consumption of the department store was frequently associated with mass destruction. Lerner leaves it to the reader to make the implied connection to Jews. But it would have been interesting to learn more about Lerner's thoughts regarding the possible implications of this alleged connection between Jews and destruction.

Lerner's history of the German “consuming temple” is powerful and persuasive, but it is also incomplete. Lerner's story ends with Germany under National Socialism, and there is not much in the book about the afterlife of the “Jewish” department store, first in exile and then in the postwar period. The question of the association between Jews and these “consuming temples” is particularly intriguing for the post-Holocaust period. Such a discussion would have contributed to ongoing debates on continuity and change in the “German century,” especially as they relate to the question of attitudes toward Jews beyond just National Socialism. A number of other omissions are also worth noting. For instance, Lerner deals mainly with anti-department store discourse, only occasionally referring to department store enthusiasts. But if resentments were so strong, why were department stores so successful? Moreover, the discussion deals primarily with right-wing, anti-department store agitation. There is much less here about how the German Left responded to the democratization of consumption.

The book also makes very little reference to actual department-store shoppers, and hardly deals with the question of Jews as consumers. Almost all department stores advertised in the Jewish press, and some of them even offered special goods for Jewish consumers. The Tietz department store in Berlin, for example, had its own kosher food section and before World War I, the Wertheimer store sold “Jewish products” from the Holy Land. Last but not least, Lerner is very much aware of the different types of department store, some of which were relatively small, but studies, for the most part, only the most prominent “consuming temples,” leaving less well-known, Jewish-owned department stores in Germany for future investigation. To be sure, then, there is still work to be done on this topic. With its innovative method and stimulating approach, looking at economic activity as cultural practice, Consuming Temple nevertheless breaks new ground in historical research: it is an exciting study that provides readers with a lucid and extremely accessible analysis of a number of central topics in modern history.