Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England (review)

Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England. Edited by Peter Temin. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. Pp. vi+328. $24.95.

This book is different, but different in a surprisingly positive way. First, its shape is square rather than rectangular and the print is large, which immediately suggests a superficial coffee-table volume. And indeed the publication, which was sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, was planned with the goal of reaching a crossover audience of academics and lay readers. But just to prove that you cannot judge every book by its shape or print size, Engines of Enterprise is an innovative, informative publication that deserves a broad audience of scholars and their students.

Five chapters penned by six different authors carry the economic history of the New England region forward from the 1620s to the present. The prose is textbook clear. These chapters contain the distilled wisdom of decades of ongoing scholarship. Margaret Newell begins with a smart essay that brilliantly sums up the extant literature on the colonial period. The same high quality holds true for the authors of the four subsequent chapters: Winnie Rothenberg (1770 to 1830); editor Peter Temin (1830-80); Joshua Rosenbloom (1880-1940); and Lynn Elaine Browne and Steven Sass (1940-2000). These narratives are reminiscent of the work of some of the early giants in the field of economic history, such as George Rogers Taylor and Edward Kirkland. In fact, it would be fair to say that the focus of many economic historians has come full circle; one of the advantages of the renewed interest in the institutional framework of the economy is the prospect of a wider readership. The book also includes three short commentaries, really sidebars, by Bernard Bailyn, Merritt Roe Smith, and Paul Krugman.

The focus on a singular region over four centuries is a refreshingly novel concept. We witness the increases, flat periods, relative declines, and rebounds in the New England economy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries poor soils were a serious handicap to agricultural advances. With the rise of textile factories and the boot and shoe industry, New England prospered; manufacturing was its strength. By the first half of the twentieth century, those two primary sectors had stagnated and the outlook for revival was glum. After 1950, defense work temporarily reignited the regional economy, but the winding down of the cold war reduced the impact of the governmental stimulus. In the last quarter of the century, New England turned toward high tech and financial services (insurance and mutual funds), but no sector was truly dominant. By 2000, the range of economic activities was much more varied than at any time over the last two centuries. With manufacturing sharply curtailed, the region's economy was no longer particularly distinctive; instead it reflected the general trends influencing the mainstream of the U.S. economy.

The search for common threads in these five chapters reveals one persistent theme: the power of a superior system of public and private education. Temin cites that factor in the success of early-nineteenth-century manufacturing, and Browne and Sass emphasize the importance of the "knowledge" industries in more recent times. The region's prestigious universities led the way. Although none of the authors discuss the topic at great length—perhaps because it is so obvious—the flexibility to move into activities where the region possessed comparative advantage was an important reason for the long-term successes of the local economy.

This volume is a valuable addition to scholarship, and I urge other regional federal reserve banks to sponsor conferences similar to the one on which it is based—and likewise make arrangements to publish the invited papers. History is such an overwhelming discipline that none of us can remember more than a fraction of the information beyond our narrow specialties. We need education ourselves, and multiple reminders. Engines of Enterprise delivers what you never knew...