Humboldts Preußen: Wissenschaft und Technik im Aufbruch by Ursula Klein (review)

This book is a game-changer. Written for a semi-popular press and in a style that will reach a wide audience, it challenges received views on the role of science and technology in Prussia by taking seriously the knowledge economy of state enterprises. Klein's focus is on the state's cultivation of "useful sciences" during the middle years of Alexander von Humboldt's life (1769–1859). Although the timeframe is judiciously chosen—it covers the enigmatic transition period bordering 1800—the title "Humboldt's Prussia" demands explanation. Humboldt was in Prussia for only a few years between 1799 and 1829, when he toured the Americas, lived in Paris for twenty years, and visited Russia, residing in Berlin only during 1805–7 and 1827–28. But his life before those journeys sets the leitmotiv for the book: Humboldt's early service as a Prussian mining official stationed in Saxony and Bavaria provides Klein with a fitting venue to introduce the central importance of useful knowledge to Prussia's administration.

Like Joel Mokyr and Margaret Jacob, Klein focuses on a sociocultural constellation that has largely escaped notice: the state's promotion of science and technology in areas like agriculture, mining, and the manufacture of goods like porcelain. She asks us to view Prussia's industrialization as occurring over the long term, in spurts and lulls, and not as an eruption occurring in the 1830s and 1840s. By systematically integrating useful forms of knowledge into manufacturing, she claims, the state promoted the development of laboratory science and precise forms of measurement.

Her story begins with Humboldt in cameralist Prussia. Through Humboldt's engagement with state mining projects—especially his visits to foreign salt mines, where he was instructed to look for methods Prussia could adopt—she explores the activities of other administrators who lectured on applied projects in Berlin, promoted the hiring of administrators with technical expertise, conducted experiments in the hopes of finding practical solutions to pressing problems, and developed ways of ending Prussia's reliance on unreliable imports, such as sugar and Virginia tobacco, by introducing new plants or substitutes.

Chemistry occupies a special place in her story. As the majority (85 percent) of Prussian manufacturing in 1800 was in textiles, the state supported chemists for the development of color dyes. Pharmacy laboratories, heavily regulated by the state, were crucial for the introduction of refined precision measurements in chemistry through the adoption of pharmacy scales in chemical laboratories. The Königliche Preußische Porzellanmanufactur founded in 1763 was, after textiles, one of the largest industries in Prussia, and so the state encouraged the testing of new porcelain recipes and experimentation with new colors, including yellow from uranium, discovered by the Prussian chemist (Chymicus) Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789.

Prussia's administration—especially the departments of forestry, mining, and infrastructure and building—emerges from this story as a crucial promoter of technical expertise in state service and even of the overall development of theory-based science and technology. Numerous smaller institutions in Berlin benefited from its support: the botanical garden, pharmacy laboratories, artillery laboratories, the surgical and medical college, and later chemical laboratories. The direction in which the administration's compass pointed was steadfast and clear. It tried to establish educational institutions that could train future generations; here its success was uneven. Nonetheless the Prussian penchant for bureaucratic control, oversight, and regulation worked to strengthen technical education by vetting instructors, reviewing curricula, and requiring reports on student performance. Instruction itself proved to be an important feedback mechanism: the need to organize material for teaching put the state in the position of supporting homegrown textbooks that systematized knowledge, which in turn furthered the state's practical goals. As state administrators cultivated useful knowledge, that useful knowledge transformed them into experts working for the common good.

Klein's contributions to understanding the nascent stages of industrialization have multiple consequences. Two are crucial. She reinterprets the founding of the University of Berlin in 1810 and...