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Old Town Square Romerberg in Frankfurt, Germany at twilight

By Barry Eichengreen, Project Syndicate | October 24, 2025

Why did Germany, defeated in both World War I and WWII, recover so strongly after the latter, but not after the former? Two new books suggest that conventional accounts of the Wirtschaftswunder – West Germany’s miraculous economic ascent after WWII – get it wrong.

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The Two Lineages Of Liberty

The Two Lineages Of Liberty

Liberty developed through the convergence of two lineages. The first is the modern lineage of Enlightenment criticism, which required political power to justify itself before reason.

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