Since the Boom: Continuity and Change in the Western Industrialized World after 1970

by Sebastian Voigt (Editor)

Overview

The 1970s are of particular relevance for understanding the socio-economic changes still shaping Western societies today. The collapse of traditional manufacturing industries like coal and steel, shipbuilding, and printing, as well as the rise of the service sector, contributed to a notable sense of decline and radical transformation.

Building on the seminal work of Lutz Raphael and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Nach dem Boom, which identified a "social transformation of revolutionary quality" that ushered in "digital financial capitalism," this volume features a series of essays that reconsider the idea of a structural break in the 1970s. Contributors draw on case studies from France, the Netherlands, the UK, the US, and Germany to examine the validity of the "after the boom" hypothesis. Since the Boom attempts to bridge the gap between the English and highly productive German debates on the 1970s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487537050
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Series:	German and European Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Sebastian Voigt is an assistant professor at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Munich – Berlin.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Sebastian Voigt

Section One: Ambiguities

1. Crisis or Opportunity? Amway and an Unfamiliar Story of Economic Growth in the 1970s
Jessica Burch

2. Crisis? What Crisis? Mass Consumption in Great Britain in the 1970s and Early 1980s
Sina Fabian

3. Decent Work in the Home? Household Workers and the Crisis of Social Reproduction since the 1970s
Eileen Boris

Section Two: Adaptations

4. The Clandestine Crisis: Migrant Labor in an Age of Deindustrialization
Michael Kozakowski

5. Challenges of Computerization and Globalization: The Example of the Printing Unions, 1950s to 1980s
Karsten  Uhl

6. Soft Skills in an Age of Crises: Continuing Training as Economic Coping Strategy in West German Companies
Franziska Rehlinghaus

Section Three: (Dis-)Continuities

7. Deindustrialization and the Globalization Discourse in France since 1980
Andreas Wirsching

8. Look to the Future, Embrace Your Past: Regional Industrialization Policies and Their Aftermath
Bart Hoogeboom and Marijn Molema

9. The End of Long-Established Certainties: The Transformation of Germany Inc. since the late 1980s
Hartmut Berghoff

Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

Stefan Berger

"Since the Boom has been the acronym of an important debate among German social historians concerning the caesura of the 1970s. This volume is thankfully introducing these debates to an English-language audience and also succeeds admirably in putting the German debates in a comparative framework that includes the Western industrial world. It will be read with great benefit by all contemporary historians interested in social change connected to deindustrialization in Western societies."

Jörg Neuheiser

"In this interesting contribution to the ongoing debates on economic change in and since the 1970s, Sebastian Voigt presents cutting-edge research by both young and established scholars in the field. The individual papers are excellently researched and show innovative and highly thought-provoking takes on the well-established narrative of the 1970s as a decade of economic crisis, industrial decline, and ideological change from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. The great strength of this volume is its wide scope of countries covered besides Germany, including the United States, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. This represents a much-needed extension of the debate that can serve as a bridge and make it easier to teach graduate courses on contemporary German history and politics in English-speaking countries."

Jörg Neuheiser

"In this interesting contribution to the ongoing debates on economic change in and since the 1970s, Sebastian Voigt presents cutting-edge research by both young and established scholars in the field. The individual papers are excellently researched and show innovative and highly thought-provoking takes on the well-established narrative of the 1970s as a decade of economic crisis, industrial decline, and ideological change from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. The great strength of this volume is its wide scope of countries covered besides Germany, including the United States, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. This represents a much-needed extension of the debate that can serve as a bridge and make it easier to teach graduate courses on contemporary German history and politics in English-speaking countries."

Editorial Reviews

"In this interesting contribution to the ongoing debates on economic change in and since the 1970s, Sebastian Voigt presents cutting-edge research by both young and established scholars in the field. The individual papers are excellently researched and show innovative and highly thought-provoking takes on the well-established narrative of the 1970s as a decade of economic crisis, industrial decline, and ideological change from Keynesianism to neoliberalism. The great strength of this volume is its wide scope of countries covered besides Germany, including the United States, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. This represents a much-needed extension of the debate that can serve as a bridge and make it easier to teach graduate courses on contemporary German history and politics in English-speaking countries."

—Jörg Neuheiser, DAAD Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of History, UC San Diego

" Since the Boom has been the acronym of an important debate among German social historians concerning the caesura of the 1970s. This volume is thankfully introducing these debates to an English-language audience and also succeeds admirably in putting the German debates in a comparative framework that includes the Western industrial world. It will be read with great benefit by all contemporary historians interested in social change connected to deindustrialization in Western societies."

—Stefan Berger, Director of the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University Bochum

From the Publisher