Book Review

This meaty study is prompted in part by current efforts of Europeans to achieve a truly effective economic union on the continent. Andreas Etges was also inspired by the notable works of Hans Ulrich Wehler, his eminent mentor at the University of Bielefeld, who has written extensively on the economic development of Germany from the eighteenth century to the present. In this examination of comparative economic development in Germany and the United States, 1815–1914, Etges raises searching questions relevant to our own day. Is economic union feasible without close political and cultural ties? Indeed, are economic policies merely reflections of political and cultural values, as Marxists have long maintained? Is the very idea of "Europe" merely an intellectual construct similar to the concept of the "nation"? Was the American experience really distinctive, an issue that historians such as Michael Kammen and sociologists such as Seymour Martin Lipset have explored? Are similarities between German and American economic development in the nineteenth century more important than their respective exceptionalism? As the United States becomes an older and more mature nation, comparisons with other societies are bound to become more common.

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