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Abstract:
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Life and Death in the Kingdom of Shoes is an exploration into the lives of the people of Zlín , Czechoslovakia from 1923 to 1941 . During this period Zlín became the headquarters for one of the most successful commercial concerns in the world , the Bat’a Company . Alongside its explosive economic growth , the company attempted to transform its workforce and town into a highly rationalized operating system , which held strikingly new determinants for inclusion and exclusion within the body politic .
From planners , architects , and executives to criminals , housewives , and students , Life and Death in the Kingdom of Shoes encompasses high and low to suggest that the conflicts and compromises of those living in Bat’a’s model industrial towns produced a distinct ideology with its own symbols , heroes , and discourse . The ideology , Bata -ism , was part of a transnational project to design , build , and control cities based on scientific principles of rationalism . The project transcended national , class , and religious boundaries to offer a new way of identification : the Bata -man or woman . Work , play , gender , loyalty to the company , and appearance became much more important in deciding one's place within Bat’a’s twenty four towns , and some 3 ,600 retail outlets , than nation , class , or religion .
This dissertation challenges dominant historical narratives of Czechoslovakia and Bat’a in the interwar period , which have focused almost exclusively on national conflict and on the designs of the executives . By turning attention to the debates and implementation of something that radically changed people’s lives - the rationalization of everyday life – Life and Death in the Kingdom of Shoes adds a crucial chapter to our understanding of interwar Czechoslovakia The primary aim is to peel away the facade of the utopian company project to locate , in the words of the historian Richard Stites , “oceans of misery , disorder , chaos , corruption , and whimsicality that went with it .” With the stories of people like Marie Urbašková , a prostitute who led police on a fool’s errand , Life and Death in the Kingdom of Shoes allows disparate narratives to unravel tidy conceptions of Bat’a’s utopian project . |