High Technology in the Low Countries: Geschiedenis van de Techniek in Nederland, 1800-1890

There is something profoundly ironic about the publication of this magnificent six-volume history of technology in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. ¹ We do not usually associate the Netherlands with the technological progress of the Industrial Revolution. Specialists, of course, are aware of the important role played by Dutch technology during the seventeenth century, but even in that period commerce and finance seem always to occupy center stage. By 1800 the focus of European technological development had moved decisively across the sea to Britain; by the second half of the nineteenth century, when it shifted back to the Continent, one thinks of Germany and France, and among the smaller countries of Belgium and Sweden, as the players that mattered. ² The Netherlands seems to have been relegated to the role of a technological follower, an epigone.

The reality in nineteenth-century Western Europe was that even in countries that made relatively few major contributions--Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands--technology was at the core of social and economic change. Just being situated in Western Europe and having a relatively open economy meant that the Dutch were constantly exposed to a torrent of new technological ideas and opportunities. In the final analysis, it probably mattered less than is often supposed who was a technological leader and who a follower. Technology transformed every aspect of material life in the Netherlands just the same, even if it was a bit later and a bit slower. ³

No doubt realizing this, a group of Dutch historians of technology under the leadership of Harry W. Lintsen have assembled a wonderfully detailed multivolume set on the history of Dutch technology, beautifully produced by Walburg Pers. It seems remarkable that countries that can claim to have been the source of more original technological activity--and in which the history of technology has far more practitioners--have not brought forth anything resembling this set of books in either its aesthetic achievements or its scholarly quality. The Oxford History of Technology volumes, those of Maurice Daumas, those of Melvin Kranzberg and Carroll Pursell, are neither as detailed nor as ambitious. ⁴ The hundreds of illustrations in the Lintsen set are truly outstanding, yet these volumes are by no means coffee-table books. The authors are by and large distinguished scholars who have given this project their best. Their essays are simultaneously accessible and well written, scholarly and detailed. The footnotes are extensive, much of the reference material being to primary sources, and each of the six volumes has a complete bibliography, arranged by chapter. For scholars familiar with the Dutch language and working in the history of technology, economic history, or social history of the nineteenth century, this set is an indispensable tool for research and teaching.

Furthermore, Lintsen and his collaborators have taken an unusually catholic view of what they mean by the history of technology. Needless to say, the set contains chapters on the standard topics of nineteenth-century technological history: textiles, steam power, railroads, the telegraph, iron and steel, and so forth. Yet there are also three chapters in the second volume, an entire section, concerned with public health and hygiene. ⁵ Perhaps it would be natural for a Dutch book such as this to emphasize hydrological topics, but a separate (albeit short) chapter devoted exclusively to the role of the state in the creation of an infrastructure is a pleasant surprise. A four-chapter sequence (almost a small book by itself) by G. P. J. Verbong on technical education and the training of engineers is equally unusual, but most welcome. Just as welcome is the attention paid to human capital formation--for example, vocational training and the technical education of engineers. Lintsen and his collaborators clearly felt that in addition to describing how technology worked they should tackle questions such as "where does technical knowledge come from?" and "how...