The Great Disorder

Reviews / Votes

'Feldman has single-handedly generated a flood of printed paper on the inflation which would have impressed even the President of the Weimar Reichsbank ... The Great Disorder is hyper-history ... It is a remarkable achievement, which comprehensively demolishes the "positive" view of the inflation, but leaves tantalizingly open the question of whether or not an alternative policy would have been adopted.'
Times Literary Supplement By any standards, this is a monumental work. Its imposing format - over a thousand pages, each with two columns of text, well chosen illustrations and many helpful tables - is more than matched by the formidable arsenal of scholarship deployed to sustain it. This is a definitive work which crowns decades of endeavour. His book must be required reading for any scholar working in the field of twentieth-century German history. * A.J. Nicholls, St Antony's College, Oxford, German Historical Institute, London, Bulletin, Volume XVIII, No. 2 May 1996 * The Great Disorder is his opus magnum on the topic. The work is organized chronologically. The author successfully weaves vivid descriptions of social developments and momentous cultural change into his narrative ... there is never an embarrassment of riches in this narrative ... Eloquence, wit, and irony make this an eminently readable book; a unique familiarity with the archival material and academic literature allow Feldman to arrive at conclusions of rare judiciousness and balance. The Great Disorder is likely to remain the most comprehensive history of the great German inflation for a long time. * Hans-Joachim Voth, Nuffield College, Oxford, German History, Vol. 14, No. 1, '96 * the reader ... has probably the most complete account of German economic history for the decade beginning with the Grat War and ending in the Great Inflation ... Feldman has written a brilliant synopsis of a complex of politico-economic processes which set Germany on the path to hyperinflation. Feldman's own solution to this problem has resulted in what is no doubt going to become a classic for the next generation. His analysis combines intriguing new insights with the deployment of an almost unsurmountable amount of archival evidence, in the process revealing remarkable skills at explaining German social norms and institutions to an Anglo-Saxon audience in a very easy and natural way. * Albrecht Ritschl, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Financial History Review *