Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany / Edition 1

by Bernd Widdig

Overview

For many Germans the hyperinflation of 1922 to 1923 was one of the most decisive experiences of the twentieth century. In his original and authoritative study, Bernd Widdig investigates the effects of that inflation on German culture during the Weimar Republic. He argues that inflation, with its dynamics of massification, devaluation, and the rapid circulation of money, is an integral part of modern culture and intensifies and condenses the experience of modernity in a traumatic way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520222908
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/21/2001
Series:	Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism , #26
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	293
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 4.00(d)

About the Author

Bernd Widdig is Associate Professor of German Studies and Director of the MIT-Germany Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Männerbünde und Massen: Zur Krise männlicher Identität in der Literatur der Moderne(1992).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Money Matters: Culture and Inflation

PART ONE: History and Experience
2. Flirting with Disaster: The German Inflation, 1914-1923
3. Daily Explosions: Canetti’s Inflation

PART TWO: Money
4. Under the Sign of Zero: Money and Inflation

PART THREE: Figures
5. Uncanny Encounters: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
6. Visions of Work: Hugo Stinnes and His Doubles

PART FOUR: Accounts
7. Cultural Capital in Decline: Inflation and the Distress of Intellectuals
8. Witches Dancing: Gender and Inflation

PART FIVE: Epilogue
9. Aftershocks: Inflation, National Socialism, and Beyond

Notes
Bibliography
Index