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  • Industrielle Revolution in Deutschland: Regionen als Wachstumsmotoren
  • Harm G. Schröter
Hubert Kiesewetter . Industrielle Revolution in Deutschland: Regionen als Wachstumsmotoren. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2005. 307 pp. ISBN 3-515-08613-7, €24.00 (paper).

The volume is an updated version of Kiesewetter's 1989 book with nearly the same title (Industrielle Revolution in Deutschland 1814-1914), published with Suhrkamp. Although Kiesewetter takes new literature into account, there is little change within the text since the 1989 edition. Two tables have been added. Kiesewetter maintains that the industrial revolution was not a national but a regional event, which only through aggregation by statisticians was suggested to be national. Geographers undervalued this insight because they are trained to understand every item in its relation to space. But, it is quite new to many historians who are accustomed to comprehending the nation as one entity. It is quite remarkable that no major new insights or approaches have been added since the 1980s. In Germany vast sums were spent on historical statistical projects, focused mainly on the nineteenth century, in order to generate more and better quantitative data. The data is open for use. But most of those projects turned out to be a misallocation of funds because the improved data yielded neither substantially improved insights, nor new interpretation of the industrial revolution. Consequently, Kiesewetter's book still represents the state of the art, at least on the German industrial revolution.

In his introduction Kiesewetter discusses the old East-West academic trench-war over "industrial revolution" or "industrialization" (pp. 16-19). This kind of fossil "industrial revolution is a misnomer" [End Page 444] from the Cold War is still maintained in best-selling textbooks, such as Rondo Cameron and Larry Neal's A Concise Economic History of the World (p. 100). Kiesewetter counts the magnitude of change, not whether it was bloody or short-term. He prefers the term industrial revolution because the changes connected to that issue "entirely changed life on our planet" (p. 12).

On the other hand, the book could have been improved by a critical revision, which would have added to or improved a couple of questionable paragraphs and organizational characteristics. For example, we miss any systematic discussion of the role of technique and of innovation. The same applies to the relation of industrialization and education. Last not least, Kiesewetter understands industrialization as a sociologic or economic process. While he underlines the importance of regions—in contrast to nations, and thus gets the reader more interested in the limits of geographical change—he does not take the parallel step of narrowing his focus down to the level of actors (entrepreneurs).

Nor is the organization of the book entirely useful. It is presented in two parts, I. frame and traits of development, and II. change within economic sectors, 1815-1914. The introduction raises three questions—"revolution" or not; periodization, and the role of the state. Strangely the paragraphs on demography are not included in part I, but rather are included in part II, on economic change. The chemical industry is incorporated into coal-mining, while traditional services, such as butlers, house-maids, or the possible economic impact of the military sector, are not mentioned. And some items are virtually hidden. For instance, technical change in print-media, a sector in which Germany excelled, is included under the headline "swings of the economy and signs of crisis" (p. 63).

Kiesewetter maintains that economically the colonies exploited Germany and not the other way round (pp. 101-102). Because there are still many people who believe the contrary, a table providing evidence would have been useful. His section on how Germany's industry overtook the UK (pp. 114-117) includes sections on strikes and different trade unions in Germany as well as 27 lines on education. If Kiesewetter is suggesting that these items were important tools "in the economic strategy of Germany" (p. 114), he should explain in what way and compare them to the UK. The choice to mention these three issues, which are just characteristics of society, without exploring why and how they contributed to Germany overtaking the UK is a misallocation. He, also, should define what he means by...

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