Rebuilding Germany: The Creation of the Social Market Economy, 1945-1957

Description

The social market economy has served as a fundamental pillar of post-war Germany. Today, it is associated with the European welfare state. Initially, it meant the opposite. Rebuilding Germany examines the 1948 West German economic reforms that dismantled the Nazi command economy and ushered in the fabled 'European Miracle' of the 1950s. Van Hook evaluates the US role in German reconstruction, the problematic relationship of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his economics minister, Ludwig Erhard, the West German 'economic miracle', and the extent to which the social market economy represented a departure from the German past. In a nuanced and fresh account, Van Hook evaluates the American role in West German recovery and the debates about economic policy within West Germany, to show that Germans themselves had surprising room to shape their economic and industrial system.

"This book is to be welcomed as a valuable contribution to an overdue reconsideration of the social market economy, in Germany, and elsewhere." American Historical Review, A.J. Nichols "...closely and empirically argued...because of Van Hook's thoroughly grounded analysis of policymaking, students and specialists will need to take his findings into account."- German Studies Review Roland Spickermann, University of Texas "Van Hook's analysis is convincing, based on a solid understanding of the existing scholarly literature and wide research in German, British and American archives." - Ronald J. Granieri, University of Pennsylvania "Van Hook is to be commended...for his compelling treatment of Erhard's annus mirabulus in 1948. Considering the highly technical and model-driven state of economic history, it takes a certain boldness for non-quantitative historians to assert a casual relationship between economic policy and economic outcomes." - William Glenn Gray, Purdue University