The Unpredictable Dynamo: Germany's Economy, 1870-1918
F.G. Stapleton examines the momentous social and political consequences of Germany's spectacular economic growth.
During the 1851 Great Exhibition in Britain, representatives from the 18 states of the German Confederation marvelled at the range and quality of manufactured goods from the 'workshop of the world'. Yet by 1900 the united German State had taken that economic mantle from Britannia. Between unification in 1871 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the Kaiserreich not only caught up with Britain's economic growth rates but actually surpassed them. This economic progress enhanced the prestige of the Wilhelmine State as much as did the existence of the finest armed forces in Europe.
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