The financial meltdown of 2008/2009 has revitalized critiques by economists and policy makers alike of the economic structures and market mechanisms underpinning the global economy. Although clearly conceived and written before the financial crisis, Leaman's tightly argued analysis of Germany's political economy since the 1980s sheds light on the roots of problems that have rocked the global economy. Leaman's main concern, however, is to explain Germany's difficulty rebuilding the former East Germany's economy and making its productivity, income, and employment converge with the West's. Leaman argues that the Federal Republic's turn to neoliberalism and supply-side economics in the early 1980s significantly undermined Germany's form of “organized capitalism” that included mandatory social insurance (health, unemployment, old age, accident, and more recently long-term care) and a system of employment relations that is centered on collective bargaining by centralized trade associations and trade unions. This weakening of the German model of the political economy, the accompanying decline in net wage income relative to net profits, and softening of demand has, in turn, reduced Germany's ability to confront not only the economic challenges of reunification and but also more recently the global economic crisis.

The Christian Democratic and Free Democratic coalition government under Helmut Kohl's chancellorship beginning in October 1982 introduced into West Germany supply-side economic doctrine, including taxation reforms, regulatory reform, and privatization. The goal was to reverse what was seen as the problems of the 1970s of high inflation, growing unemployment, the state's rising share of the national income, and the state's over-involvement in the economy that hindered investment. The hope of supply-siders was that with the greater accumulation of capital due to lower tax costs and other cost burdens, a virtuous circle of reinvestment, production, wealth creation, job creation, and growth would ensue. This chain of events, however, has not subsequently occurred. Leaman argues that with new global investment opportunities, capital did not reinvest into productive capacities in Germany, but instead sought higher returns in global financial markets, helping to give rise to what he terms “casino economics” and resulting in relatively jobless growth cycles since the 1980s. To Leaman the continued application of neoliberal policies in the former East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 critically undermined any prospect of quick reconstruction and has plagued the east with low growth rates since the early 1990s. He concedes that the currency union of July 1990, which converted the Ost Mark to the Deutsche Mark at a 1:1 basis for wages, salaries, and prices, was unavoidable for a variety of political and social factors, but argues that steps could have been taken to avoid its disastrous impact on the east's economy. With costs in the east rivaling those in the west, but with productivity much lower, most business enterprises were doomed to bankruptcy. Despite growing unemployment and lack of investment from German businesses, which were attracted to lower costs further in eastern Europe, the federal government failed to construct a coordinated fiscal and monetary policy. Instead its politicians and policy makers held an unwavering belief that exposure to market forces and solid currency would bring convergence of the east's economy with the west's. Leaman reserves special criticism for the Bundesbank as particularly culpable for the economic problems in the east with its pursuit of a tight monetary policy in the 1990s. Leaman suggests this was part of a “politics of resistance” in which the Bundesbank wanted to prevent or delay the introduction of the European Monetary Union by maintaining high interest rates, thereby putting pressure on other European currencies and potentially making it impossible for the currencies to meet the conditions of the monetary union.

Even after the fall of Kohl's government in 1998 and with a government under Social Democratic and Green leadership, neoliberalism continued to predominate the German political economy with further reductions in business taxes, a decrease in pensions, and a weakening of labor laws that undermined social and job security among Germans. Leaman portrays Gerhard Schröder and Germany's SPD as forsaking their true Social Democratic roots of social justice in favor of supply-sidism. Leaman makes not only a Keynesisan argument against the neoliberal ideas, but also argues that the “German model” of capitalism would give it the tool kit to confront a variety of economic challenges. To Leaman, supply-side economics is a theology whose proponents have a blind faith in the power of the market to remedy any economic conditions, regardless of larger political, social, and economic factors and despite almost thirty years of what he sees as its failures.

In this well-researched and persuasively argued book, Leaman draws upon a wide range of both English- and German-language literature to bolster his case. He skillfully weaves together economic, political, and social factors in his analysis and clearly places Germany's political economy within the context of worldwide economic and financial developments since the 1970s. That said, in light of China recently overtaking Germany as the world's largest exporter, Leaman might have explored a bit more fully what China's economic rise means to Germany's export-oriented economy. In any case, Leaman has clearly provided a sharp critique of the neoliberal paradigm that has been dominant since the early 1980s and has made the case for the resurgence of some form of neo-Keynesian economic policy that could be flexibly employed to meet a variety of future economic challenges.