Mark

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Mark is Currently Reading

Mark rated a book it was amazing

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

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Mark said: " Solid way through the book. 269 pages through. Biggest takeaways:

Huge focus on balance of payment issues and the constant crisis in the Nazi economy in the lead up to the second world war, all the way back to 1933. The fundamental issue, is that Hitl Solid way through the book. 269 pages through. Biggest takeaways:

Huge focus on balance of payment issues and the constant crisis in the Nazi economy in the lead up to the second world war, all the way back to 1933. The fundamental issue, is that Hitler was an ideologue and wanted to pursue war at all costs. I think this contradicts some of the more 'realist' understandings of Hitler, that he was in some sense a relatively typical fascist authoritarian 'backed into a corner' of semi-realist and simply opportunistic expansions at convenient times. Even before the militarization of the Rhineland and the annexation of Austria, both relatively 'reasonable' in terms of the norms of the times and actual impacts, the economic methods and goals made war almost impossible to avoid. Avoiding war would mean a crash and burn of the economy based on everything they do after the seizure of power, at least in the short run, and the Nazi's were unwilling to afford that politically nor deal with it's consequences on military readiness. He was an extremist ideologue, and while the Nazi economy did indeed rebound, it was at some extreme costs to the consumer, normal functioning economy, and structure of industry to do so, and by no means is it clear that the economy did particularly better than what a more private driven and non-war driven rebound would've looked like. You can definitely tell he was an 'anti capitalist', but in the reactionary sense. He is no doubt a 'socialist' in the sense that modern Americans generally are not able to understand, but which made perfect sense in the early 20th century. Constant help and support from the private sector and 'crony capitalist' pickers of 'winners and losers' is combined with serious and widespread suppression of profit, seizures and forced nationalizations, and enforced pushes to invest in certain things (rubber production, synthetic oil, steel, etc.) while threatening forced nationalization if they did not comply.

The book benefits from a huge focus on the fundamental problem of imports, currency valuation, and the constant fear by the Nazi's of anything that could be perceived as 'inflation', or get in the way of military readiness for the expansive and vague goals associated with timelines around expansion. This empirical emphasis turns vague questions of ideology and politics into very tactile, extremely explicit problems the Nazi's create, confront, and solve for the purposes of rearmament. Large amounts of the book so far are, 'the Nazis are confronted with objective limits to expanding military production, their foreign exchange reserves are rapidly decreasing, they must stop rearming. So they come up with a new policy (seizure of foreign exchange reserves, nationalization of certain critical export/import markets, vast investments in things like synthetic oil and synthetic fiber so as to replace imports) which lets them import more military stuff, spend more on military stuff, suppress domestic private demand, export more stuff to gain foreign exchange reserves, and spend less on civilian imports. This happens multiple times from 1933 onwards. Each time, there are significant parts of the business community, and more 'mainstream' conservatives in the Nazi party, who see this as the last straw, that the state will finally stop rearmament, that they have to stop. But Hitler says, 'you're going to win so much, you're going to get tired of winning', and there is a reshuffling of policy and people, and they continue.

So much of Nazi foreign policy in this period are savvy decisions by the Nazi's which give access to new foreign exchange reserves, new ways of limiting domestic demand, expanding exports, and ways of getting as many imports as possible with an extremely limited foreign exchange reserve pool, combined with a political inability to be able to devalue the currency which would solve any of the issues. On the other side of these savvy decisions, were situations caused entirely by internal Nazi decision making and world view concerns, which forced them to make increasingly clever and distortionary impacts on the economy and labor pool in incrementally ad hoc and ersatz ways. This type of self-imposed siege mentality, and self-imposed sense of economic and political crisis, is what really drives the German political and military rearmament and ability for the Nazi state to make the types of economic decisions necessary for their vast goals.

Last takeaway, is Hitler's centrality of the United States in his understanding of what success looked like, and in his view of the long run problem that had to be faced by Germany in global competition. This is apparently much more clearly lined out in his 'second book', a much less popular book than Mein Kampf but which states his ideology much more clearly, written a few years later. For him, the rather 'moderate' view of the time, that they needed a larger state to compete and that the United States was a serious competitor, was augmented by his views about racial hierarchies, and his understanding of the United States has a bulwark of Jewishness. While some 'moderate' German conservatives could understand expansion through the lens of wanting a larger consumer pool, including Poles and Czechs, for Hitler this was simply ridiculous and irrelevant. While there was definitely a desire for new land, it was the land they wanted, and not the people. Through this, and through mass rationalization of industry and self sufficiency, he thought he could gain the material basis through which the German people could out compete the United States economically in the long run and in military terms stay alive, while also providing a pioneer and homestead expansion zone, or American style 'west', for ethnic Germans. This was in the East, though.

Anyway, great book. ...more "

progress:

(page 360 of 802)
"Unbelievably good. The Nazi war economy and armament plan barely worked, and was shocking haphazard. Fascinating to read how the Nazis in essence forced themselves to go to war asap because the balance of payments, raw materials, and long term strategic balance were all increasingly difficult challenges." — Jun 09, 2026 12:58PM

Jun 05, 2026 03:19PM · see review

Mark rated a book really liked it

Trial by Battle: The Hundred Years War, Volume 1

by Jonathan Sumption

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Mark said: " Feels unlikely I'll finish this, it's massive, it's kind of like the other massive epic history books I've gotten 50-80% through and then lost interest in the newer periods discussed later in the books. But it's my kind of history, detailed economic Feels unlikely I'll finish this, it's massive, it's kind of like the other massive epic history books I've gotten 50-80% through and then lost interest in the newer periods discussed later in the books. But it's my kind of history, detailed economic and political and military descriptions along with lots of anecdotes and slices of life.

Extremely rich descriptions of both personal and political life in France, and then England. I'm about 10% in right now. The comparison between French decentralization in terms of tax and manpower while having a relatively 'centralized' state in terms of political culture or centrality of the King, and the English decentralized political culture with strong opponents to the king, but very efficient and effective centralization in terms of tax and manpower primarily through the parliament is really interesting.

France outscales England in this regard over time, and by the 1500's is becoming the type of dominant European land power that it reaches at it's imperial zenith in the 1600's and 1700's, but it's interesting that during this period the English Norman state is able to punch well above it's weight in terms of money, and sustainment of force while in the field.

The most interesting thesis is that the English, though they start the hundred years war only a decade or two after the end of a long period of civil war and internal upheaval, has sharpened through internally directed violence their military elite and military infrastructure. So on top of the taxation advantage through legitimization through parliament, they have high quality military decision making and organization. Interesting!

The book really gets into its stride when it becomes more of a narrative history after introducing Gascony.

Update 04/06/2026

Book rocks. The heavy detail and rich anecdotes which explain the real social contours of how feudalism 'works' are so interesting to read, and really fill in a lot of political and economic questions about the period. The large emphasis on a 'narrative' style of history is really enthralling, and makes even the long descriptions of tax and financial innovation feel really easy to follow. The book is a great mixture of political history, diplomatic history, and military history. While it avoids much of a social or 'history from below' that I think might add at points, there is a wealth of complex scheming and legal or diplomatic arguments at the top that are difficult to follow even in a book of this size. ...more "

progress:

(65%)
"Book rocks. The heavy detail explaining how feudalism 'works' are so interesting to read, and really fill in a lot of politics/economic questions. Enjoy the 'narrative' style, even the tax and financial innovations feel really easy to follow. Great mixture of political history, diplomatic history, legal hist, and military history. Not much 'history from below' but the top level legal/diplomatic stuff is rich enough." — Apr 06, 2026 11:10AM

Apr 06, 2026 11:07AM · see review

Mark is currently reading

Road to October 7: A Brief History of Palestinian Islamism

by Erik Skare

bookshelves: currently-reading, 2026-aspiration

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Mark said: " Really good.

It's a 'brief' history for sure, but it really delineates the difference between palestinian islamic jihad and hamas in a way I was totally ignorant of. It also much more neatly than my vibes based understanding details how exactly Islam ...more "

progress:

(50%)
— Mar 05, 2026 11:26AM

Mar 04, 2026 06:34PM · see review

See all 15 books that Mark is reading…