Germany

The second volume focuses on the dislocation caused by economic downturn and the Thirty Years' War in the first half of the seventeenth-century, the gradual recovery up to 1800, and the long-term structural legacy of the seventeenth-century crisis. Characteristic features of Germany in thisperiod are the growth of bureaucratic absolutist states; the comparatively slow development of agriculture, industry and trade; the long survival of a corporate organization of society, despite the emergence of the 'middle-classes' and the long-term poor; and the importance of religiousconfessionalism and moral and social regulation.