Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany [Hardcover]

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.

Bernd Widdigis Associate Professor of German Studies and Director of the MIT-Germany Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author ofM?nnerb?nde und Massen: Zur Krise m?nnlicher Identit?t in der Literatur der Moderne(1992).

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: Canettis 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

A landmark study. . . . Widdig's energetic account uses an interdisciplinary approach to reveal how economic anxieties were powerfully symptomatic of larger social and cultural issues. Maria Tatar, author ofLustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany

Bernd Widdig displays sharp intelligence and uncommon wit in this brilliant study of culture and inflation. Following the explosions in politics andl@