Pflug und Steuerruder: Zur Verflechtung von Herrschaft und Landwirtschaft in der Aufklärung by Susan Richter (review)

The decline of the "divine right of kings" during the Enlightenment coincided with a practical transformation of the role of the monarch in European societies. Yet as Susan Richter points out, this intellectual development also coincided with famines and food shortages throughout the eighteenth century, necessitating a pragmatic realignment of monarchical power in consultation and collaboration with the landed gentry. This repositioning of the monarchical concept did not occur in a cultural vacuum. As the author argues, it occurred in the context of a global interconnectivity that demonstrated a remarkable willingness of the existing powers to engage with ideas of leadership that derived not only from European pre-Christian Antiquity but also from contemporary Asia.

Richter's central premise is straightforward enough. Before the eighteenth century, the relationship between the political center and the agrarian periphery was weakened by the rise of ecclesiasticism. Agricultural production in Europe was not considered a political issue; during harvest crises, the monarch was relegated to the role of an "intermediary" between God and temporal powers. However, famines and food shortages undermined peasant confidence in the power of prayer. At the same time, Chinese agriculture was undergoing a revolution of productivity and efficiency that, in contrast to Europe's hungry mouths, easily supported a population that doubled in size between 1650 and 1750. This transformation was accomplished by interventionist state policies that tended toward a holistic, Confucian character.

From the second half of the seventeenth century, "China reports" from travelers and Jesuit missionaries began filtering into Europe. The French Jesuits were well versed in science and mathematics, and their reports praised the Chinese emperor's role as "erster Gelehrter seines Landes" (208), or the country's principal scholar. They also emphasized the philosophical character of the emperor. In turn, the emperor became the unlikely template for Enlightened lordship in both France and the Holy Roman Empire. This lordship was to be characterized by philosophical governance toward a common good. In France, the cause was taken up by the physiocrats, who saw in the Chinese example a natural hierarchy remaining in perfect balance. The person of the king remained at the top of a system that emphasized the importance of social rigidity. This would have disastrous consequences in 1789, when Louis XVI, having failed in his perceived Confucian responsibility for the provision of bread and nourishment, was deposed by the merchant women of Paris after bread prices had risen far beyond the ability of most of the urban poor to afford. Yet the fall of Louis XVI did not repudiate Enlightenment agrarian Confucianism. Instead, the new French Republic sought to bind the state even more closely with the countryside. The nomenclature of the Revolutionary calendar consciously echoed the importance of the seasons, and mayors honored the most successful farmers. At the same time, the militarization of agricultural production—as reflected in songs and dramas of the era—hearkened back to the examples of Greece and Rome, entreating farmers to approach their toils with "the enthusiasm of Marathon" (462).

This pastiche of contemporary Chinese and ancient European practices had precedent in the Holy Roman Empire of Joseph II (1741–1790). Joseph was influenced from an early age by the Chinese example, since his education was conducted by Jesuits. Unlike Louis XVI, he made a habit of touring the countryside; thus, he witnessed the consequences of poor crop yields in Bohemia in 1769 and Moravia in 1771. His approach to the role of an "agricultural emperor" was pragmatic and reflected both the strictures of physiocracy and cameralism. In contrast to the Bourbon dynasty, Joseph was glorified by the citizenry of the empire for his empathy; the plough that he personally pushed during his visit to the Moravian village of Slawikovice in 1769 remained untouched for a year after the visit in deference to the "imperial hands" that had operated it. Despite continued agricultural...