Designing one nation: the politics of economic culture and trade in divided Germany

"Designing One Nation explores how East and West Germans negotiated their country's postwar division at the juncture of economic and cultural politics.

It is especially concerned with historical interconnections between the two Germanies in industrial design, economic structures, corporate ethos, trade, economic foreign policy and consumer culture, all of which are subsumed under the term "economic culture." It shows that post-war reconstruction, as envisioned and realized by a network of politicians, entrepreneurs, and cultural brokers, did more than to modernize the respective parts of Germany.

Rather, through the national re-inscription of their material culture, here explored in the realm of interior design and furniture production, the two German states pursued an unprecedented effort to regain economic stability and political influence in post-war Europe's order.

Significantly, what started as a Cold War competition for ideologica