Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle

David Meskill

ISBN 10: 1845456319 / ISBN 13: 9781845456313

Published by Berghahn Books, 2010

About this Item

New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days.

Seller Inventory # B9781845456313

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845456319
• ISBN 13: 9781845456313
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 614 grams

About this title

Synopsis

During the twentieth century, German government and industry created a highly skilled workforce as part of an ambitious program to control and develop the country’s human resources. Yet, these long-standing efforts to match as many workers as possible to skilled vocations and to establish a system of job training have received little scholarly attention, until now. The author’s account of the broad support for this program challenges the standard historical accounts that focus on disagreements over the German political-economic order and points instead to an important area of consensus. These advances are explained in terms of political policies of corporatist compromise and national security as well as industry’s evolving production strategies. By tracing the development of these policies over the course of a century, the author also suggests important continuities in Germany’s domestic politics, even across such different regimes as Imperial, Weimar, Nazi, and post-1945 West Germany.

About the Author

David Meskill received a Ph.D. in Modern European History from Harvard University. He has published articles on the Labor Administration, applied psychology, and Alexis de Tocqueville. He is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Dowling College.