Sutter Fichtner, Paula

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

194 msTOIRE SOCIALE - SOCIAL HISTORYfeminist scholarship and China studies than is 1991. And Ono's work finally remindsos that while the Chinese revolution did not create a women's utopia, its successes inremedying the condition of women in the century from 1850-1950 are manifold.Ann WaltnerUniversity ofMinnesota***John Komlos - Nutrition and Economie Development in the Eighteenth-CenturyHabsburg Monarehy. An Anthropometrie History. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1989. pp. xv, 325.Historians have worked long but inconclosively to distinguish cause from effectwhen explaining the onset of the Industrial Revolution. They generally agree thatpopulation growth, availability of capital, agricultural improvement and politicalenvironment played important roles in this most significant of all economic changesin the modem world. But just wbat relationship did these factors bear to one another?Were agricultural advances, for example, driven by demographic pressures or theother way around? What, precisely, was the role each of these conditions played infostering the Industrial Revolution itself?John Komlos's ambitious book will certainly not lower the intensity of debate.Nor, despite prodigious reading and great mathematical sophistication, has heanswered these questions more satisfactorily than many of the scholars whose workhe criticizes in his introduction. Author of a respected study of the Habsburg Empireas a costoms union, he bas undertaken, at least at frrst glance, a rather perverseenterprise. He seeks to apply to all ofEurope a model based upon developments whichhe believes brought the Industria1 Revolution into the lands of the house of Austria.Given the relative economic backwardness which marked the Habsburg state until itscollapse in 1918, it seems an unlikely place for paradigm-generation of that sort.However, in this case, the very eccentricity of the locale serves to illustrate hislarger point. Thoughtfully repeated either wholly or in part throughout the denselyconstructed text, the argument runs as follows: the Empire faced a MaIthusian crisisduring the middle of the eighteenth century. Empress Maria Theresia and her son,Joseph II, forestalled this by opening up the economy through curbing aristocratic,guild, and ecclesiastical privilege. The effect of these measures was to bring thesurplus population into the work force, thus setting the conditions for the IndustrialRevolution in Austria. Similar developments are to he found in all of Europe.At the very least, the analysis opens up interesting, and largely unexaminedissues in Habsburg history. The prevailing view of the Theresian and Josephinianreforms is that they were a response to military challenges, primarily from FrederickII of Prussia. Komlos proposes that these changes were prompted equally, Ü not moreso, by domestic unrest which stemmed from dwindling supplies of food. Only furtherresearch will tell. Indeed, here lies one of the problems with his work. A large part ofit is dedicated to establishing the existence of a MaIthusian crisis in the lands of thehouse of Austria. This, he does through close examination of height measurementstaken from conscripts in the eighteenth-century Habsburg armies. These declinedduring much of the period, leading the author to conclude that dietary deficienciesCOMPTE RENDUS - BOOK REVIEWS 195abounded. The impact of the Theresian refonns on industrialization in the HabsburgEmpire, actually the crucial proof for bis arguments, is passed over quite lightly.However, bis purpose goes far beyond elaborating a paradigm of economicdevelopment It is 10 create, as his subtitle reveals, an anthropomorpbic history, onewhere biology is at the center of the human experience rather than, for example,exogeneous economic events. Having done this, at least to bis own satisfaction, hemoves 10 his most important conclusion about the place of the Industrial Revolutionin history: that is part of demograpbic bis10ry rather than the product ofcircumstancespeculiar 10 the eighteenth century.The theory certainly bas its attractive side. If true, its generality allows not onlypan-European but diachronie application as weIl. Thus, we might be able 10 explainmore succinctly than we do now why the Industrial Revolution occurred in differentplaces at different times.Unfortunately, it fails 10 persuade, at least this reader. Part of the difficulty liesin Komlos's development of bis position. Though he rejects theorists ofcapital growthsuch as W.W. Rostow and more seriously, Simon Kuznets, in favor of demogra-phically oriented his10rians such as Rondo Cameron, Douglass North and especiallyEster Boserup, he moves ever closer to the side of the former as the book unfolds. Hethereby relaxes the rigor of his theory 10 the point where it becomes doubtful onrhe10rical grounds alone. Near the end of the text (222), he gives equal causal force10 both population and capital stock in getting the Industrial Revolution underway. Itis a position few would dispute, leaving one 10 wonder why Komlos bothered tofashion the elaborate presentation that he did.His apparent uncertainty here undermines even the Austrian section of the book,the area of his primary research. He bimself admits that the Habsburg govemmentintervention which aborted the Malthusian cycle and set the stage for the localIndustrial Revolution occurred only because the govemment bad the intellectual andfinancial resources 10 address the crisis. Biology, capital and changing values, in thissetting, stood, at the very least, on an equal relationship with one another. Similarflaws crop up when he extends his model 10 England. There, he argues, the marketfunctioned as did the Austrian administration. By absorbing the growing populationin10 the labor pool, it averted a similar crisis. Komlos believes that the economicexpansion of the second half of the eighteenth century was "of little importance" (170)in promoting the Industrial Revolution. But surely, employers could take advantageof the expanded labor supply only because they were sufficiently capitalized andwished to improve their positions even more.There are other reasons not 10 dismiss the relationship of eighteenth-centurycircumstance and the rise of the Industrial Revolution as Komlos seems prepared todo. Govemment intervention to avert nutritional catastrophe was hard1y new to thatage, even in the relatively backward Habsburg Empire. From 1569 to 1573, forexample, a serious grain famine ravaged the Austrian lands, Bohemia and Bavaria.Authorities in an three principalities took active measures to keep the population fromstarvation which met with sorne, though not complete success. More than anythingelse, improvement in the weather intervened 10 bring the crisis 10 a halt. Naturalphenomena had the same effect as did the Theresian reforms or the English market,yet the Industrial Revolution was a long way away from late-Reformation southemGermany. Even Komlos admits that Maria Theresia and Joseph II had different196 mSTOIRE SOCIALE - SOCIAL mSTORYresources at their command 10 deal with the situation they faced, implying that theyenjoyed a position in their time that their predecessors did not.Komlos goes to considerable length 10 anticipate all possible criticism of hisideas - so much so that the book often reads as if it were written 10 ward off theformer rather than to demonstrate the latter. One should study the text patiently,reserving judgment 10 the end. Apparent lapses in the analysis are clarified or crucialassertions supported long after first mention - an organizational failing, to he sure,but not a scholarly one. Above all, he does not want to be seen as a biologicalmechanist. Sometimes, however, he falls into the trap. One such moment appears10ward the end of the book as he speculates that the inventive geniuses of industrializ-ing England - Arkwright, Cartwright and Watt- performed as they did because theyate better than did their forebears (200-201). Such absurdities at least serve to warninterdisciplinary historians of how careful they must be when they confront thecomplexity of human biology. Watt, it should he noted, was hardly robust - he had10 leave his London apprenticeship at age nineteen for rest in his native Scotland. Helived, however, a long productive life. Was nutrition, generally superior for normalpeople, adequate for Watt? If so, how? Was it a question of raw calories, as Komlosseems 10 think throughout part the book? Or was it sorne more subtIe combination ofingredients, as he remarks elsewhere? Might Watt have been simply the heneficiaryofa genetic quirk, an approach Komlos rejects in other parts of his text, not altogetherpersuasively. In general, his command of nutritional history is less full than hismastery of demographics and quatitative techniques. His assertion, for example, thatEuropean upper classes were no better nourished than more lowly folk requiresserious qualification, at least for the early modem period, 10 be acceptable. It is truepostnatal and infant nutrition were about the same at alileveis of society. However,adolescent eating patterns, not 10 mention those of pregnant women where fetaInutrition was also at issue, favored growth and survival among the well-to-do.In the final analysis, Komlos's book must be evaluated by two standards in order10 do it justice. He has certainly given Habsburg historians a useful presentation ofphysical statistics for a significant segment of the male population in the age ofMariaTheresia and Joseph II. He has identified new types ofquestions 10 be put 10 such dataand carefully constructed mathematical tools 10 analyze the problems it suggests. Hisapplication of these findings 10 industrial history of the empire, not 10 mention that ofEurope as a whole, however, is partially tenable if at all. At best, Komlos has throwndown an interesting challenge to scholars of the Industrial Revolution. He bas by nomeans driven them from the field.Paula Sutter FichtnerBrooklyn College***

John Komlos - Nutrition and Economic Development in the
Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy. An Anthropometric
History

https://hssh.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/hssh/article/download/16719/15577

John Komlos - Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy. An Anthropometric History

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)