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This issue interrogates the power and the persistence of the concept of economic miracle. Originally associated with the seemingly miraculous postwar recoveries of Germany and Japan, the economic miracle has become a fixture in economic policy-making, especially in the global south where the longing for a miraculous economic transformation has served as a justification for repressive regimes and intensified inequality.
Roundtable
Miracles and Mirages: Quinn Slobodian tracks the globalization of the miracle concept; Franco Barchiesi discusses how colonial tropes of Blackness produce distinct meanings for economic miracles in Africa; Christy Thornton connects the Mexican miracle to that nation’s “dirty war”; Rebecca Karl argues that the language of economic miracle allows the Chinese leadership to sever the economic boom from its historical roots; Paula Vedoveli explores the possible “story engines” for the economic miracle engineered by the Brazilian military regime.
Features
Aimée Plukker focuses on West Berlin as an emblem of capitalist miracles in the context of the cold war; Melissa Teixeira discusses the everyday experience of hyper-inflation in the aftermath of the Brazilian military regime’s miracle; Johanna Gautier Morin addresses how the Pinochet regime devised statistics that obscured the injuries and limits of the Chilean miracle; Hannah Borenstein analyzes two Ethiopian films that portray personal responses to miraculous failures; Ellis Garey discusses the visit of a Syrian Communist to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and his vision of the Soviet miracle and its impact on social life.
Interventions
Andre Pagliarini discusses the intertwining of rapid economic growth and authoritarian politics in the Chilean and Brazilian miracles; Abou Bamba addresses the uneven use of the miracle concept in the context of Côte d’Ivoire; Hasan Karrar explores efforts by the Pakistani government to construct a miraculous coastline economy based on the Dubai model.
Teaching Radical History
James N. Green shares his innovative syllabus on the Brazilian military dictatorship, and Jacob Blanc discusses his course on the history of developmentalism.
Cover: Past, present, and future in the city of Tianjin, described as “a prime engine in the Chinese economic miracle.”
