The Past as Practice or Parable?

2021 ◽  
pp. 82-104
Author(s):  
Catherine R. Schenk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future Policy ◽  
Second World

The 2008 crisis was a boon to the discipline of economic history and created an appetite for ‘lessons from the past’ by academics as well as policy-makers as they sought to respond to the failure of economic theory to anticipate the crisis. But beyond this intense example, can we make conclusions about the pathway to impact for historical treatments? Is there something especially inspiring or impactful about the 1930s? Does the widespread awareness that there was an interwar Great Depression and that it was terrible and that it may have contributed to the Second World War mean that it has particular resonance when it is invoked by policy-makers? How has the past been used in anticipation of (rather than reaction to) financial crises? Examining two episodes, this chapter demonstrates the use of the past as a parable for current and future policy and as a rehearsal for a future crisis.

“Product Not Available in Pre-War Quantities – but Quality Remains the Same”: Remarks on Advertisements as Historical Sources

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Press ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The article focuses on advertisements as visual and historical sources. The material comes from the German press that appeared immediately after the end of the Second World War. During this time, all kinds of products were scarce. In comparison to this, colorful advertisements of luxury products are more than noteworthy. What do these images tell us about the early post-war years in Germany? The author argues that advertisements are a medium that shapes social norms. Rather than reflecting the historical realities, advertisements construct them. From an aesthetical and cultural point of view, advertisements gave thus a sense of continuity between the pre- and post-war years. The author suggests, therefore, that the advertisements should not be treated as a source for economic history. They are, however, important for studying social developments that occurred in the past.

Varieties of Unsuccessful Industrialization: The Balkan States Before 1914

1975 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Lampe
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
The Future ◽  
Balkan States ◽  
Second World

This paper should begin with a brief defense of its title. “Variety” and “unsuccessful” are doubtful if not dirty words to most economists and many economic historians. The “success stories” of rapid development in Western Europe, Russia and Japan have been the most frequent subject of this Journal's articles on non-American topics. And the discovery of uniformity in the past, rather than variety, is admittedly essential to the development economist's search for predictability in the future that has informed so much of the economic history written since the Second World War.

Economic theory and economic history (1929) WERNER SOMBART (1863–1941)

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical School ◽  
Werner Sombart ◽  
Second World

Werner Sombart was a leading member of the German historical school in the later decades of its existence. This movement is conventionally divided into two: the ‘older historical school’ beginning with Wilhelm Roscher (1817–1894) and others in the 1840s, and the ‘younger historical school’ beginning with Gustav Schmoller (1838–1917) in the 1880s. The German historical school lasted until the devastations of the Nazi period and the Second World War.

South Asian Developmental Crisis (Review Article)

1973 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-188
Author(s):  
Rafiq Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Integrated Theory ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Developed World ◽  
Second World ◽  
Made In

Like nations and civilizations, sciences also pass through period of crises when established theories are overthrown by the unpredictable behaviour of events. Economics is passing through such a crisis. The challenge thrown by the Great Depression of early 1930s took a decade before Keynes re-established the supremacy of economics. But this supremacy has again been upset by the crisis of poverty in the vast under-developed world which attained political independence after the Second World War. Poverty had always existed but never before had it been of such concern to economists as during the past twenty five years or so. Economic literature dealing with this problem has piled up but so have the agonies of poverty. No plausible and well-integrated theory of economic development or under-development has emerged so far, though brilliant advances have been made in isolated directions.

Amnesia, aphasia and amnesty: the articulations of Italian colonial memory in postwar films (1946–1960)

Modern Italy ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Gianmarco Mancosu
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
National Reconstruction ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Second World ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This article aims to expose the political and cultural processes that contributed to the eradication of problematic memories of the Italian colonial period during the national reconstruction following the Second World War. It offers a systematic examination of newsreels and documentaries about the Italian former colonies that were produced between 1946 and 1960, a film corpus that has largely been neglected by previous scholarship. The article first dissects the ambiguous political scenario that characterised the production of this footage through the study of original archival findings. The footage configured a particular form of self-exculpatory memory, which obstructed a thorough critique of the colonial period while articulating a new discourse about the future presence of Italy in the former colonies. This seems to be a case of aphasia rather than amnesia, insofar as the films addressed not an absence, but an inability to comprehend and articulate a critical discourse about the past. This aphasic configuration of colonial memories will be tackled through a close reading of the voice-over and commentary. In so doing, this work suggests that the footage actively contributed to spread un-problematised narratives and memories about the colonial period, whose results still infiltrate Italian contemporary society, politics and culture.

Bedreigde bouwvallen

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-234
Author(s):  
PURMER MICHIEL ◽  
HENK BAAS
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Conservation And Development ◽  
The Past ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
Office Space ◽  
Second World

Threatened ruins. Castle remains in the Dutch landscape anno 2019 In The Netherlands, around 80 castle ruins are preserved. In 1997, a book was dedicated to the castle ruin. A year later, one of the authors of this paper investigated castle remains as part of a historical geographical inventory. In 2012, the Dutch State Heritage Agency wrote a practical guide for the conservation and development of castle ruins. In this article, the authors describe the development of ruins in the past 20 years. They tried to investigate the development of the castle ruins since the late nineties and tried to categorize this. Rebuilding of the castle, partly or totally, appeared in almost 10% of all ruins. In other cases, there was attention for the touristic infrastructure around the ruin. In most cases however (68%), the ruins stayed more or less intact, with sometimes careful consolidation or restoration. Sometimes, the surroundings of the ruin changed dramatically with the development of housing, infrastructure or other forms of urbanization. In other examples, historical gardens were restored or reconstructed. There are however several plans for the rebuilding or reconstruction of ruins. These plans often provide the new castle with functions, from wedding location to hotel or office-space. This could be a good development for castles destroyed relatively short ago, i.e. in the Second World War or in de postwar period. Many ruins are however destroyed centuries ago. Given the limited amount of ruins in The Netherlands and the sometimes centuries old development of the landscape and the ruin itself, the authors plea for more attention for the castle ruins as such.

The Belgian national past: Between commemoration and silence

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Rosoux ◽  
Laurence van Ypersele
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Memory Conflicts ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

This article examines the gradual deconstruction of the Belgian national identity. Is it possible to speak of a de facto differentiation or even ‘federalization’ of the so-called ‘national past’ in Belgium? How do Belgians choose to remember and forget this past? To contribute to an understanding of these issues, the article considers two very different episodes of Belgian history, namely the First World War and the colonization of the Congo. On the one hand, the memory of the First World War appears to provide the template for memory conflicts in Belgium, and thus informs the memories of other tragedies such as the Second World War. On the other hand, the memory of the colonial past remains much more consensual – providing a more nuanced picture of competing views on the past. Beyond the differences between the ways in which these episodes are officially portrayed, the same fundamental trend may be observed: the gradual fragmentation of a supposedly smooth and reliable national version of history.

Seoul and Nanking, Baghdad and Kabul: A Response to Timothy Brook and Michael Shin

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-125
Author(s):  
John Whittier Treat
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Japanese Empire ◽  
World War ◽  
Ethical Judgments ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Security State ◽  
Second World

I begin my rejoinder to Timothy Brook and Michael Shin by reiterating the important question with which Brook ends his piece. “[W]hen Hamid Karzai's government falls in Afghanistan, or Nouri al-Maliki's does in Iraq, who then will be the nation's heroes and who the collaborators?” Questions such as this and other present-day conundrums (including the choices I make living in a national security state) were certainly on my mind when I began thinking about collaboration during the Second World War and particularly within the Japanese empire. The line between then and now is direct and short for me. Timothy Brook himself has been the target of an internet smear campaign assailing his work on Chinese collaboration for purportedly preparing an alibi for American mischief in Iraq and Afghanistan. Paramount among my own thoughts was always: what would I do, were I faced with the choices a Yi Kwang-su, a Liang Hongzhi or a Wang Jingwei was? It seems an irresistible reflex to me that we place ourselves in the position of those in the past who wagered and lost, and rehearse their calculations as our own: judgment of their decisions is as inevitable as it is necessary. The question is not if we will judge—to refuse risks our claims to moral agency—it is how. Timothy Brook, whether he once declined or now hesitates, indeed does make ethical judgments (he is on the record, for example, against advocating “collaboration as a morally positive or politically advisable course” [2008]), and indeed he should. That we have not come to similar conclusions only points to our missing consensus on a moral calculus, and not to the lack of an imperative to possess one.

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