Just spend half an hour watching these historical datas, you will learn more than by reading thousands of articles. You can select the country and the indicator to be displayed( here it is the GDP growth ). So much interesting stuff : - So many industrialized countries went in recession in the early 1990s.??? - Germany had a recession in 2003.??? - Saudi Arabia went from 60% growth in 1970 to 20% recession in 1982??? ... http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
Germany was considered the "sick man" of Europe during the late 90s - early 00s. A lot of it had to do with the price they had to pay for reunification.