Thomas Mann and the Disillusions of Progress

Strange as it may seem, inflation per se has not been a literary subject. What has stirred the imagination is hyperinflation. From the row over the assignat to the collapse of the ruble, which contributed to the fall of Yeltsin and the arrival of Putin, only the great monetary dramas, accompanied by major political crises – whether consequence or cause – have captured the attention of writers. It's no coincidence that, today, the return of inflation that is still modest reminds us, in a dramatic way, of the hyperinflation that erupted, especially in Germany, in the aftermath of the First World War. For that era, there's no lack of literary references – Broch, Musil, and Brecht. But don't they lead us towards catastrophism? The shock was all the more violent for a German of the 1920s in that it compounded the consequences of defeat with…