Achse, Rad und Wagen: Fünftausend Jahre Kultur- und Technikgeschichte ed. by Wilhelm Treue

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1039 disappointing in comparison with his earlier Supplying War, this is a good book that will be of most use to the specialist and the novice. Alex Roland Dr. Roland teaches military history and the history of technology at Duke University. He is working on a history of the evolution of military technology in Western civilization. Achse, Rad und Wagen: FiinftausendJahre Kultur- und Technikgeschichte. Edited by Wilhelm Treue. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986. Pp. 412; illustrations, notes. DM 88.00. This heavily illustrated volume bears the same name as a book published in 1965 under the auspices of the industrial concern Bergische Achsenfabrik Fr. Kotz and Sohne. This is an entirely new book, however, that combines the work of twelve scholars, one from the company’s museum, in an effort to cover the entire history of wheeled transportation from earliest times to the advent of the automobile. Part 1 consists of nine essays dealing with wheeled vehicles in the ancient Near East (Wolfram Nagel), ancient Egypt (Wolfram Decker), ancient Greece (Hajo Hayen), the prehistoric Sahara desert (Hayen), Rome (Winfried Weber), prehistoric Europe (Hayen), Central Asia (Alexander Hausler), India (Adalbert J. Gail), and early China (Magdalene von Dewall). The emphasis in the essays is quite consis­ tently on the technical details, including measurements, of wheel and vehicle construction. The technology of harnessing and the social and economic contexts of changes in vehicle design are, by comparison, only lightly touched on. Coverage of regions where physical remains are scarce or absent, such as the Sahara, therefore is rather slight. The issues raised by other scholars about the provenance, meaning, and style of the vehicles depicted in Saharan rock art do not fit well with a technologically focused discussion. Though the chapters are impeccably scholarly in tone and appara­ tus, they do not represent much new scholarship. For the European regions, Stuart Piggott’s The Earliest Wheeled Transport: From the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea (Ithaca, N.Y., 1983) gives fuller discussions of specific technical matters and broader coverage in terms of topics addressed. Unlike Piggott, however, the present authors do not go into vexing and controversial questions of chronology and priority of invention. Their approach is more that of the museum curator than the archaeologist. For the ancient Near East and Egypt, similarly, scholars will prefer to consult the more extensive discussions in M. A. 1040 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Littauer and J. H. Crouwel’s Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East (Leiden, 1979). The chapters on India and China are understandably not as developed as the others since there has been much less scholarly work on these areas, but the chapter on China includes interesting materials from recently uncovered Chou Dynasty burials. Despite the comparative lack of new theories or interpretations, there is a virtue in having so many regions encompassed in a single volume. Anyone interested in getting an expert overview of the technological history of wheeled vehicles can find it all in one place, and the up-to-date bibliographies included in the notes point the way for those who want a more specialized treatment. Part 2 contains five chapters. The first, by Herbert Haupt, discusses vehicles in medieval Europe in a manner similar to that of the chapters in part 1. The next three, however, on coaches up to the end of the 17th century (Rudolf H. Wackernagel), from the beginning of the 18th century to the advent of the motor car (GeorgJ. Kugler), and on the diffusion of European vehicle designs into colonial regions, most notably North America and South Africa (Wilhelm Treue), concentrate on personal transportation, particularly the more luxu­ rious varieties. Farm vehicles, wagons for carrying goods, and military transport receive little mention. In terms of technical developments, of course, this emphasis is fully justified since springs, one of the most important inventions, were designed to increase comfort. Yet the transference of new techniques from luxury to the everyday vehicles would have been interesting to investigate. Also of interest in these chapters are several discussions of the evolution of the business of vehicle building. Illustrations from coachbuilders’ catalogs displaying the wide variety of vehicles avail...