Appendix B: A Note on Sources and Methodology

We stand on the cusp of a technological revolution, driven by artificial intelligence and other breakthroughs, that promises the potential for unprecedented economic growth. For the first time in generations, sustained GDP growth of 5% or more per year is not a historical artifact, but a tangible possibility.

But what does that number actually feel like? We have become so accustomed to decades of slower growth that the sheer, world-altering force of such acceleration has become an abstract concept. This book was written to answer that question: to make the reader feel, at a deep, human level, what it is like to live through a period of explosive economic transformation. The goal is to provide a visceral understanding of the magnitude of change for the better that high growth can bring, so we may grasp the stakes of the future we are building.

To do this, I have chosen two of the most dramatic economic turnarounds in modern history: Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1939, and the United States from 1940 to 1945. Both serve as a historical time machine, allowing us to witness societies moving at a velocity that reshapes everything. Crucially, they also serve as a profound cautionary tale, demonstrating that the method of achieving growth matters more than the number itself.

The Pillars: Foundational Scholarship

A narrative like this rests on the shoulders of giants. The historical understanding of the Nazi economy and American mobilization has been shaped by decades of meticulous scholarship. Three works, in particular, served as the primary pillars for this book's framework.

For Germany, Adam Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy is the indispensable modern guide. Tooze’s central argument—that the Nazi economic recovery was fundamentally unsustainable and predicated from the beginning on plunder and a future war of conquest—is the analytical backbone for the German narrative. Complementing his economic focus is Richard J. Evans’s monumental trilogy, especially The Third Reich in Power, which provides an unparalleled "view from below," detailing how Nazi policies permeated every aspect of daily life.

For the United States, David M. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 served as the definitive account of the American experience. Kennedy masterfully weaves together the political, social, and economic threads of the New Deal and the subsequent wartime mobilization, providing the rich context for the Sullivans' story.

Voices from the Past: Primary Sources

While historians provide the map, primary sources provide the texture of the terrain. I have sought to ground every chapter in the documents of the time.

The Official Record: Government publications like Germany’s Reichsarbeitsblatt (Reich Labor Gazette) and data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provided the raw numbers for wages, hours, and employment. For the German data, Gerhard Bry’s meticulous 1960 study, Wages in Germany, 1871-1945, was an invaluable resource, offering crucial adjustments for taxes and the hidden inflation of ersatz goods that official Nazi statistics sought to conceal.

The Public Narrative: Newspapers served as a window into the reality being presented to citizens. In Germany, this meant analyzing the Völkischer Beobachter, the official newspaper of the Nazi Party, to understand the regime’s propaganda. In contrast, American newspapers like the Detroit Free Press reflected not just government pronouncements but also public anxieties, providing a more textured view of the home front.

The Ground Level: Institutional archives, such as those from Siemens, Ford, and the Kaiser shipyards, offered a glimpse into the mechanics of the industrial transformation that governed the daily lives of the characters.

The Challenge of Lived Experience

To make the experience of rapid growth tangible—to move it from a statistic to a sensation—I have created narrative composites.

The Müller and Sullivan families are not historical persons. Rather, they are archetypes, fictional vessels built to carry the non-fictional truths of their time. Ernst Müller’s journey from unemployment to his role in the war effort is representative of millions of German industrial workers. James Sullivan’s path from the Depression-era assembly line to the Willow Run bomber plant is the story of millions of American workers. Their thoughts, fears, and choices are a dramatization of the historical record, intended to make the statistical realities of their respective economic systems emotionally comprehensible.

Every key event in their lives—the arrival of an employment notice, the purchase of a savings stamp for a Volkswagen, the first war bond deduction, the struggle with ersatz coffee—is grounded in documented historical reality. They are our avatars, allowing us to feel the hope of a first full paycheck in years and the anxiety of a world changing faster than anyone can comprehend.

A Lesson for Tomorrow

History is not merely a collection of data points; it is the story of human choices and their consequences. As we enter a new age of potential acceleration, the lessons of this history become profoundly relevant. The German model shows that growth built on theft, exclusion, and zero-sum thinking is a gilded cage that leads inevitably to destruction. The American model, for all its flaws and injustices, shows that growth built on inclusion, innovation, and positive-sum creation can build a sustainable and broadly shared prosperity.

The purpose of this book, and the reason for translating cold data into the warm-blooded story of two families, is to provide a visceral understanding of the stakes. The choice is not whether to pursue the incredible benefits of high growth, but how. The velocity of hope is a powerful force; this history is a guide to channeling it toward a future that is not only prosperous, but also free.