This book showcases new research on various aspects of twentieth century European retailing, that challenges the traditional view that Europe was a "follower" of America in retail innovation.

Peter Scott is Professor of International Business History at the University of Reading's Henley Business School. His research interests include the history of retailing, consumer durables, household consumption, inequality, living standards, the house-building sector, working hours, and path dependence.

Patrick Fridenson is Professor of International Business History at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His research interests include the strategies, innovations, performances, and ethics of business enterprises in relation to consumers and to the regulatory and social environment in international perspective (comparisons between France, Germany, the US and Japan). He has worked on several industries: coal, automobile, aircraft, electronics and on working hours.

Introduction: New perspectives on 20th-century European retailing

Peter Scott and Patrick Fridenson

1. Managing business performance: The contrasting cases of two multiple retailers 1920 to 1939

Andrew Hull

2. More than window dressing: visual merchandising and austerity in London's West End, 1945-50

Bethan Bide

3. Turning regulation into business opportunities: A brief history of French food mass retailing (1949-2015)

Adam Dewitte, Sebastian Billows and Xavier Lecocq

4. The state, small shops and hypermarkets: A public policy for retail, France, 1945-1973

Tristan Jacques

5. Unlocking the padlock: Retail and public policy in Belgium (1930-1961)

Peter Heyrman

6. Resistance to Inequality as a Competitive Strategy? - The Cases of the Finnish consumer Co-ops Elanto and HOK 1905-2015

Anitra Komulainen and Sakari Siltala