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In the mid nineteenth century a process began that appears, from a present-day perspective, to have been the first wave of economic globalization. Within a few decades global economic integration reached a level that equaled, and in some respects surpassed, that of the present day. This book describes the interpenetration of the German economy with an emerging global economy before the First World War, while also demonstrating the huge challenge posed by globalization to the society and politics of the German Empire. The stakes for both the winners and losers of the intensifying world market played a major role in dividing German society into camps with conflicting socio-economic priorities. As foreign trade policy moved into the center stage of political debates, the German government found it increasingly difficult to pursue a successful policy that avoided harming German exports and consumer interests while also seeking to placate a growing protectionist movement.

In the 19th Century, economic growth was accompanied by large-scale structural change, known as industrialization, which fundamentally affected western societies. Even though industrialization is on the wane in some advanced economies and we are experiencing substantial structural changes again, the causes and consequences of these changes are inextricably linked with earlier industrialization.This means that understanding 19th Century industrialization helps us understand problems of contemporary economic growth. There is no recent study on economic developments in 19th Century Germany. So this concise volume, written specifically with students of German and economic history in mind, will prove to be most valuable, not least because of its wealth of statistical data.

Originally published in 1991 this book brings together 9 essays which address a number of central issues relating to the nature of German industrialisation, including the role of foreign competition in fostering technological change, the importance of market integration for economic development and the response of German banks to industrialisation. The book also provides an important corrective to the traditional interpretation of German industrialisation and reassesses the economic impact of the customs union (Zollverein). The reappraisal of some dominant themes in German economic and business history is distinctive in its explicit use of economic theory in historical analysis of long-term growth processes. It also emphasises the importance of sectoral analysis and illustrates the usefulness of a differential regional approach for understanding the process of German industrialisation. 1. The Paradigm of German Industrialisation: Some Recent Issues and Debates in the Modern Historiography of German Industrial Development Robert Lee 2. Foreign Competition and Technological Change: British Exports and the Modernisation of the German Iron Industry from the 1820s to the 1860s Rainer Fremdling 3. Tariffs and Market Structure: The German Zollverein as a Model for Economic Integration R. H. Dumke 4. Banking and Economic Growth: Banks and Industry in Germany in the Nineteenth-Century and their Changing Relationship During Industrialisation Wilfried Feldenkirchen 5. Cyclical Trends and the Market Response: Long Swings in Urban Development in Gey, 1850-1914 Richard Tilly 6. Sectoral Performance and Economic Development: The Backward Linkages of the German Pig-Iron Industry, 1871-1913, As a Factor in Macro-Economic Growth Jochen Krengel 7. 'New Industries' and the Role of the State: The Development of Electrical Power in South Germany from c.1880 to the 1920s Hermann Schaefer 8. The Political Framework of Structural Modernisation: The I. G. Farbenindustrie AG, 1904-1945 Gottfried Plumpe 9. Germany and the International Economy: The Role of the German Inflation in Overcoming the 1920/1 United States and World Depression Carl L. Holtfrerich 10. Occupation Policy and Post-War Reconstruction: British Manpower Policy in the Ruhr Coal-Mines, 1945-1947, and West Germany Recovery Mark Roseman

In the mid nineteenth century a process began that appears, from a present-day perspective, to have been the first wave of economic globalization. Within a few decades global economic integration reached a level that equaled, and in some respects surpassed, that of the present day. This book describes the interpenetration of the German economy with an emerging global economy before the First World War, while also demonstrating the huge challenge posed by globalization to the society and politics of the German Empire. The stakes for both the winners and losers of the intensifying world market

Berlin Electropolisties the German discourse on nervousness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Berlin's transformation into a capital of the second industrial revolution. Focusing on three key groups-railway personnel, soldiers, and telephone operators-Andreas Killen traces the emergence in the 1880s and then later decline of the belief that modernity caused nervous illness. During this period, Killen explains, Berlin became arguably the most advanced metropolis in Europe. A host of changes, many associated with breakthroughs in technologies of transportation, communication, and leisure, combined to radically alter the shape and tempo of everyday life in Berlin. The resulting consciousness of accelerated social change and the shocks and afflictions that accompanied it found their consummate expression in the discourse about nervousness. Wonderfully researched and clearly written, this book offers a wealth of new insights into the nature of the modern metropolis, the psychological aftermath of World War I, and the operations of the German welfare state. Killen also explores cultural attitudes toward electricity, the evolution of psychiatric thought and practice, and the status of women workers in Germany's rapidly industrializing economy. Ultimately, he argues that the backlash against the welfare state that occurred during the late Weimar Republic brought about the final decoupling of modernity and nervous illness.

In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, Germany was often called “the sick man of Europe.” Indeed, Germany's economic growth averaged only about 1.2 percent per year from 1998 to 2005, including a recession in 2003, and unemployment rates rose from 9.2 percent in 1998 to 11.1 percent in 2005. Today, after the Great Recession, Germany is described as an “economic superstar.” In contrast to most of its European neighbors and the United States, Germany experienced almost no increase in unemployment during the Great Recession, despite a sharp decline in GDP in 2008 and 2009. Germany's exports reached an all-time record of $1.738 trillion in 2011, which is roughly equal to half of Germany's GDP, or 7.7 percent of world exports. Even the euro crisis seems not to have been able to stop Germany's strengthening economy and employment. How did Germany, with the fourth-largest GDP in the world transform itself from “the sick man of Europe” to an “economic superstar” in less than a decade? We present evidence that the specific governance structure of the German labor market institutions allowed them to react flexibly in a time of extraordinary economic circumstances, and that this distinctive characteristic of its labor market institutions has been the main reason for Germany's economic success over the last decade.

Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. InThe Consuming Temple, Paul Lerner explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole. Drawing on fiction, political propaganda, commercial archives, visual culture, and economic writings, Lerner provides multiple perspectives on the department store, placing it in architectural, gender-historical, commercial, and psychiatric contexts. Noting that Jewish entrepreneurs founded most German department stores, he argues that Jews and \"Jewishness\" stood at the center of the consumer culture debate from the 1880s, when the stores first appeared, through the latter 1930s, when they were \"Aryanized\" by the Nazis. German responses to consumer culture and the Jewish question were deeply interwoven, and the \"Jewish department store,\" framed as an alternative and threatening secular temple, a shrine to commerce and greed, was held responsible for fundamental changes that transformed urban experience and challenged national traditions in Germany's turbulent twentieth century. Department stores in Germany, like their predecessors in France, Britain, and the United States, generated great excitement when they appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. Their sumptuous displays, abundant products, architectural innovations, and prodigious scale inspired widespread fascination and even awe; at the same time, however, many Germans also greeted the rise of the department store with considerable unease. InThe Consuming Temple, Paul Lerner explores the complex German reaction to department stores and the widespread belief that they posed hidden dangers both to the individuals, especially women, who frequented them and to the nation as a whole.Drawing on fiction, political propaganda, commercial archives, visual culture, and economic writings, Lerner provides multiple perspectives on the department store, placing it in architectural, gender-historical, commercial, and psychiatric contexts. Noting that Jewish entrepreneurs founded most German department stores, he argues that Jews and \"Jewishness\" stood at the center of the consumer culture debate from the 1880s, when the stores first appeared, through the latter 1930s, when they were \"Aryanized\" by the Nazis. German responses to consumer culture and the Jewish question were deeply interwoven, and the \"Jewish department store,\" framed as an alternative and threatening secular temple, a shrine to commerce and greed, was held responsible for fundamental changes that transformed urban experience and challenged national traditions in Germany's turbulent twentieth century.

In this unique anthology, Steckel and Floud coordinate ten essays that bring a new perspective to inquiry about standard of living in modern times. These papers are arranged for international comparison, and they individually examine evidence of health and welfare during and after industrialization in eight countries: the United States, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia. The essays incorporate several indicators of quality of life, especially real per capita income and health, but also real wages, education, and inequality. And while the authors use traditional measures of health such as life expectancy and mortality rates, this volume stands alone in its extensive use of new \"anthropometric\" data—information about height, weight and body mass index that indicates changes in nations' well-being. Consequently, Health and Welfare during Industrialization signals a new direction in economic history, a broader and more thorough understanding of what constitutes standard of living.