Bryan Ganaway introduces his study of the toy industry in Germany with the admiring remark of an American reporter at the World Exhibition of 1893: “Is it not wonderful that Germany should be the land of toys?” (p. 2). Indeed, during the period of the Second German Empire, Germany's toy industry dominated world as well as domestic markets. Foreign tourists sought out these famous toys. For example, a group of American kindergarten teachers who visited Germany in 1911 bought out the toy stores of Nuremberg before proceeding to Thuringia, the land where the kindergarten originated. Ganaway shows that the industry catered not just to children, but even more to adults, whose purchase of toys for their children tells us a great deal about their consumer habits, aesthetic tastes, beliefs about childhood, the home, and gender roles as well as conceptions of national identity.

Ganaway places his study in the context of current debates about the consumer culture of the early twentieth century. Arguing against theorists who attribute consumers' choices chiefly to their mindless pursuit of status and conformity, Ganaway asserts that the purchase of toys, as of other items, could be a means of individual self-fashioning. Expensive luxury goods such as toys appealed to a prosperous middle class that lavished time as well as money on its children. Many German parents aspired to raise their children as competent citizens of a rapidly modernizing country. Hence the popularity of technological toys, such as trains and erector (or “Meccano”) sets for boys and elaborate miniature kitchens for girls—playthings that encouraged pride in Germany as a world-famous center of technological innovation.

These costly and complex toys did not appeal to all parents. A vocal minority complained that too many bells and whistles discouraged imaginative play and creativity. Such parents provided a market for alternative toys that were made of simple and sturdy materials and often emphasized themes and patterns taken from history and rural life. Female designers who were concerned with the education of girls rejected the era's elaborate dolls, which in their opinion encouraged an excessive interest in dress and feminine adornment. These designers created alternative dolls that wore simple clothes and were sturdy enough to withstand active play. The toy industry provides us with a revealing glimpse into many broader controversies that divided the educated, middle-class public.

In addition to the toy industry's place in German culture, Ganaway also shows us its importance to the German economy. The point of view of successful industrialists who were proud of their growing share of the world market emerges from many articles in trade journals, which the author uses and quotes effectively. Socialists and labor activists, however, painted quite a different picture that emphasized the miserable conditions in which the industry's work force—which consisted mostly of women and children—lived and worked.

Ganaway presents his appealing subject in a rich interpretive framework that brings out its significance for many aspects of the cultural, social, economic, and gender history of Imperial Germany. He draws imaginatively on a wide body of archival and published source material: objects and exhibitions, popular and trade journals, memoirs, children's literature.

Ganaway, however, sometimes neglects or misunderstands the educational theories that exercised an important influence upon the period's conception of the rights and needs of children. Much of the critique of elaborate toys was inspired by the pedagogical theory and practice of the kindergarten, which although not much respected by educational policy makers, was popular among many segments of the middle class and particularly among educated women. Friedrich Froebel, the kindergarten's founder, created a set of educational playthings that were designed to demonstrate spatial and quantitative concepts to young children. These abstract and simple toys encouraged the imagination and creativity that kindergarten pedagogues attributed to their pupils. Though Ganaway often mentions Lili Droescher, a vocal proponent of simple toys, he does not explain that her views arose largely from her Froebelian training. She was the head, not (as he puts it) of “the main kindergarten in Berlin” (p. 35), but rather of the Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus, which was predominantly a training institute for kindergarten teachers and other workers in education and child care. Ganaway claims that female activists contested the gender ideology of their era, but only through alternative views of the mother-child relationship. In fact, Droescher and other female intellectuals did not intend simply to promote motherhood, but also to legitimate women's entry into the few professional fields—particularly teaching and child care—that were open to them. Such professional work sometimes enabled women to avoid motherhood by supporting themselves and living independently.