Americanization is one of the dominant narratives used by historians to explain West Germany's economic development after the Second World War. Scholars stress that the imitation of superior American technology and management techniques facilitated the fast West German economic recovery. On the downside, the convergence of consumption patterns that also came along with Americanization is often interpreted as a loss of cultural identity. Deviating from this traditional line of arguments, Jan Logemann concentrates on persistent or even growing differences of the two consumer societies. Contrasting American suburbanization with the survival of lively and livable city centers in Germany, Logemann claims that this divergence was triggered by different approaches to consumer policy in the 1950s and 1960s.

In postwar America, politicians favored the idea that strong and sustainable economic growth was mainly driven by ever-increasing private consumption and therefore supported American consumers' growing demand for the new standard package, containing a privately owned home, a car and many durables, by facilitating and subsidizing consumer credits. Cheap mortgages especially fuelled the suburban housing boom. Middle-class families moved from cities into the suburbs where the available space allowed the building of many affordable homes which now could be easily reached by using privately owned cars. At the same time, the liberalization of store hours and the abrogation of resale price maintenance enhanced the competitive edge of large retailers to the detriment of the small shopkeepers. Large shopping malls, in particular, were established in the new suburbs. Since middle-class consumers now had the possibility both to live and to shop in the suburbs, the old city centers lost most of their former functions and were ceded to the poor members of minority groups. Consequently, indebted suburban consumers were no longer willing to pay taxes for the provision of public goods mostly needed within the cities. Public transportation was reduced or even fully abolished, which, in turn, increased the demand for privately owned cars even more. According to Logemann, the decline of American cities resulted from the complex interaction of various economic and social processes.

In postwar West Germany, the capital needed for investment in reconstruction was in severe shortage. Politicians therefore decided to encourage household savings in line with the traditional preferences of most consumers who, in sharp contrast to America's slogan, “Buy now, pay later,” rather adhered to the rule, “Save now, buy later.” This view was even supported by the shop owners. In 1953, for example, a large German textile retailer campaigned against the introduction of installment purchase arguing that the resulting price increases would penalize cash-paying customers. In the housing market, households often postponed the actual acquisition of a home for at least one decade by signing government-subsidized home saving plans. As a result, many Germans lived (and still live) in rented apartments located in the cities. Also in contrast to the American development, businesses had to remain closed on Sundays and holidays. German politicians also enforced short store hours on weekdays and retained the resale price maintenance. This strict regulation enabled small cities' shopkeepers to compete with larger retailers. They also profited from urban planning. Being alarmed by the decline of American cities, German urban planners established more and more pedestrian zones which transformed city centers into outdoor shopping malls. As a result, German cities remained a place where middle-class families preferred to live and to shop. And that is why citizens also retained their willingness to forego private consumption in order to finance public transportation and other urban public goods like theaters, museums, or libraries, further increasing the attractiveness of the city centers.

An interesting point is Logemann's assumption that it was the Germans' well-established social security system which explains why Germans could afford to use their savings to finance consumption. In contrast, Americans mainly saved to cover the risks of unemployment, age, or invalidity and therefore had to finance their consumption needs by credit (p. 130).

It is a great intellectual pleasure to follow Logemann's elaborate and often very plausible arguments which combine political, economic, and cultural perspectives into one coherent narrative. Missing, however, is any attempt to test the various hypotheses presented in this book using quantitative data. It would have been an obvious approach, for example, to analyze whether the convergence of American and German consumption patterns in the 1960s (p. 81) was driven by converging incomes and relative prices. Readers might also want for a discussion about the older roots of the differences between the American and German consumer societies which might be found in the interwar period or even in the nineteenth century, when American incomes were twice as high as the German ones. Logemann's contribution is, therefore, an inspiring starting point for future research.