Since the Boom

Marked by a period of massive structural change, the 1970s in Europe saw the collapse of traditional manufacturing. The essays in this collection question aspects of the narrative of decline and radical transformation.

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

"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, DAAD Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of History, UC San Diego:

"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."