Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany / Edition 1

by Mary Nolan

Overview

In much the same way that Japan has become the focus of contemporary American discussion about industrial restructuring, Germans in the economic reform in terms of Americanism and Fordism, seeing in the United States an intriguing vision for a revitalized economy and a new social order.

During the 1920s, Germans were fascinated by American economic success and its quintessential symbols, Henry Ford and his automobile factories. Mary Nolan's book explores the contradictory ways in which trade unionists and industrialists, engineers and politicians, educators and social workers explained American economic success, envisioned a more efficient or "rationalized" economic system for Germany, and anguished over the social and cultural costs of adopting the American version of modernity. These debates about Americanism and Fordism deeply shaped German perceptions of what was economically and socially possible and desirable in terms of technology and work, family and gender relations, consumption and culture. Nolan examines efforts to transform production and consumption, factories and homes, and argues that economic Americanism was implemented ambivalently and incompletely, producing, in the end, neither prosperity nor political stability.

Vision of Modernity will appeal not only to scholars of German History and those interested in European social and working-class history, but also to industrial sociologists and business scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195088755
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/11/1994
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.19(h) x 0.89(d)
Lexile:	1700L (what's this?)

About the Author

New York University

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	xi
1.	Introduction	3
Part I	Imagining America
2.	Journeys to America	17
	Travelers and Commentators	18
	Motives	22
	Itineraries	26
3.	The Infatuation with Fordism	30
	The Man and the Book	32
	Fordism as Productivism	36
	Taylorism and Fordism	42
	Fordism as Consumption	50
	Fordism as Ideology	54
4.	American Economic Success and German Emulation	58
	The Secrets of American Economic Success	59
	Americanizing Germany/Germanizing Americanism	70
5.	Work, Workers, and the Workplace in America	83
	Quality Work and the Quality Worker	84
	Intensity and Monotony	90
	Joy in Work	98
	The Shop Floor and the Firm	103
6.	The Cultural Consequences of Americanism	108
	Mass Consumption	109
	The American Woman	120
Part II	Modernizing Germany
7.	The Paradoxes of Productivism	131
	The National Productivity Board	133
	Ruhr Coal Mining	137
	Iron and Steel	143
	Machine Making	149
8.	Winners and Losers	154
	Prices	155
	Costs	158
	Wages	160
	Profits	165
	Work and Unemployment	167
	Reactions and Responses	172
9.	Engineering the New Worker	179
	Company Social Policy and Social Rationalization	180
	Origins and Ideology of Dinta	185
	Constructing the New Worker	192
	Company Newspapers and Social Programs	196
	Trade Union Responses	200
	The Battle for the Soul of the Worker	203
10.	Hoysework Made Easy	206
	The RKW and Housework	207
	The New Woman in the New Home	211
	The Ambiguities of Household Rationalization	217
	Epilogue	227
	Notes	237
	Bibliographic Essay	307
	Index	314

Editorial Reviews

"Mary Nolan's keenly awaited book on rationalization is a timely reminder that economics is too important to be left to the economists alone...The book shows beautifully the necessary interrelationship of business history, labor history, and women's history for an understanding of this complex field of questions, and makes an unanswerable case for the mainstreaming of the concerns pioneered during the last two decades by women's history."—Geoff Eley, Department of History, University of Michigan

"An excellent economic, political, social, and cultural history of how Weimar Germany "Germanized" its perceptions of Americanism both conceptually and in practice."—CHOICE

"Nolan's nuanced attention to the class politics and conflicts underlying the reception of Americanism and the articulation of German rationalization prompts an important rethinking and rewriting of the dramatic story of labor and capital during the Weimar Republic. Nolan offers compelling insights...Nolan's excellent study offers rich and persuasive evidence that rationalization created new divisions within the German working class while intensifying old ones...[A] notable expansion of the still-underdeveloped field of German gender history...it is certain to become a classic for a wide audience of historians."—International Labor and Working Class History

"With the wealth of information it contains on a fascinating, albeit ultimately ill-fated, attempt at modernization, the book will be a valuable resource for students of German history, culture, and politics."—Journal of Modern History

"[A] fascinating read. [The book] represents an exciting approach to history writing that escapes easy categorization and that illuminates interconnections and intersections among the realms of economy, society, politics, and culture..."—Central European History

From the Publisher