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The Economic History of the Second World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Sidney Ratner
Sidney Ratner
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Abstract

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Type
Review Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Summer 1952 , pp. 263 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1952

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References

1 Hancock, W. K. and Gowing, M. M., British War Economy (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1949), pp. xvii, 583Google Scholar; Titmuss, Richard M., Problems of Social Policy (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, and Longmans, Green & Co., 1950), pp. xi, 596.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Shackle, G. L. S., Expectation in Economics (Cambridge, Eng.: University Press, 1949)Google Scholar; von Neumann, John and Morgenstern, Oskar, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944)Google Scholar.

3 (London: Macmillan & Co., 1947).

4 Space limitations prevent adequate discussion of Titmuss' contribution.

5 Hancock unfortunately does not refer to Silberner, Edmund, The Problem of War in Nineteenth Century Economic Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946)Google Scholar, or to various other relevant authorities in other fields unless the author or book is part of his text, as Keynes and his brochure, How to Pay for the War. The role of various noted British economists in the British civil service during the war and of permanent British civil servants remains obscured by the tradition that the names of civil servants should not be publicized. It is to be hoped that the light thrown upon part of the scene by Harrod, R. F., Life of John Maynard Keynes (London: Macmillan & Co., 1950)Google Scholar, will be extended to the whole scene.

6 Other recently released studies include the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, Overall Reports Covering the Period 1939–45, on German industries of wartime strategic and postwar reconstruction significance. Some 19 numbers have been planned, of which at least seven have been published so far (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1948). They contain data derived from primary German sources and range in subject from petroleum and synthetic oil to shipbuilding, timber, glass, agriculture, motor roads, and rubber.

7 Kaldor, N., “The German War Economy,” Review of Economic Studies, XIII (1945–46) 33–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klein, B., “Germany's Preparation for War,” American Economic Review, XXXVIII (March 1948), 56–77Google Scholar. Klein is engaged at Harvard upon a study of Germany's wartime economy. It is to be hoped that a manuscript volume on Germany's war economy 1939–45 by Rolf Wagenfuehr, cited by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, will be made available here soon. Its title is: Aufstieg und Niedergang der Deutschcn Rüstung, Die Industriewirtschaft des Retches 1939 bis 1945.

8 Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1949), pp. xiii, 545.Google Scholar (Issued under the auspices of the International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations.)

9 Cf. SirSansom, George, “Japan's Fatal Blunder,” International Affairs, XXIV (October 1948), 543–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Wakefield's, Harold criticism of this thesis in New Paths for Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. 110Google Scholar. ff., is referred to by Cohen, Japan's Economy, p. 47, Note 110, but not met point by point.

11 Cf. Brown, A. J., “Economic War Efforts,” Applied Economics (New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1948), pp. 46–91.Google Scholar

12 Voznesensky, Nikolai A., The Economy of the USSR During World War II (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1948), pp. 115Google Scholar. The Russian original appeared in 1947; its title, literally translated, was “The War Economy of the USSR in the Period of the Patriotic War.” J. Miller, co-editor of Soviet Studies, has criticized the translation as lacking complete linguistic accuracy and the requisite finesse in rendering Soviet ideas in economics and sociology. Nevertheless, this translation seems useful and not likely to lead to important errors or misinterpretations. A French translation is available: L'Economie de guerre de l'U.S.S.R., 1941–1945 (Paris: Librairie de Médicis, 1948)Google Scholar.

13 Bergson, A., et al. , “Postwar Economic Reconstruction in the U.S.S.R.,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCLXIII (May 1949), 52–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Gerschenkron, “Russia's Trade in the Postwar Years,” ibid., 85–100; Jasny, Naum, Socialized Agriculture of the USSR (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1949)Google Scholar, passim; Hatty Schwartz, , Russia's Soviet Economy (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950)Google Scholar, passim; United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, Economic Commission for Europe, A Survey of the Economic Situation and Prospects of Europe (Geneva, 1948), pp. 145–55Google Scholar; and Economic Survey of Europe in 1950 (Geneva, 1951), pp. 38–41, 228–29.

14 Somers, Herman Miles, Presidential Agency: OWMR (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950). pp. xiii, 238CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Connery, Robert H., The Navy and Industrial Mobilization in World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. xi, 527Google Scholar; Miller, John Perry, Pricing of Military Procurements (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), pp. xiv, 292Google Scholar; Novick, David, Anshen, Malvin, and Truppner, W. C., Wartime Production Controls (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), pp. vi, 441Google Scholar. [Reviewed in The Journal of Economic History, IX (November 1949), 252–3]; Novick, David and Steiner, George A., Wartime Industrial Statistics (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1949), pp. viii, 234Google Scholar; Civilian War Transport: A Record of the Control of Domestic Traffic Operations by the Office of Defense Transportation, 1941–1946 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1948), pp. ix, 361Google Scholar; Federal Records of World War II: Volume I, Civilian Agencies; Volume II, Military Agencies. By the General Services Administration National Archives and Records Service. The National Archives. National Archives Publications, Nos. 51–57, 51–58 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950, 1951), pp. xii, 1073; iii, 1061.Google Scholar

15 Somers is less stringent in his criticism of Nelson and less vigorous in defense of Eberstadt than Janeway, Eliot in The Struggle for Survival (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951)Google Scholar. The latter features Baruch in a more commanding position than Somers, who may not have had access to some of the sources Janeway as a journalist was able to tap, or may have evaluated those sources differently.

16 For invaluable technical background material, see the symposia on “War Contract Renegotiation” and “War Contract Termination” in Law and Contemporary Problems, X (Autumn 1943; Winter, Spring, 1944), 185 ff., 427 ff., 561 ff.

17 Harold Stein has edited for the Committee on Public Administration Cases a volume of important studies on various policy disputes in the American war effort, published this spring, that historians will find invaluable, if I may generalize from those sample chapters I have read in mimeographed form.