Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830-1870

Abstract

Reviewed by: Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830–1870* Raymond Stokes (bio) Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830–1870. By James Brophy. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Pp. xi+273; notes/references, bibliography, index. $50. Despite more than a decade of onslaughts by revisionists, adherence to the traditional picture of nineteenth-century Prussian history remains surprisingly broad. Many historians in their teaching and research still stress Prussia’s (by which they also mean Germany’s) special path to modernity (Sonderweg). They continue to privilege the “failed” revolution of 1848–49 and the liberal acquiescence to the conservative Prussian state following the Bismarckian wars of the 1860s and 1870s. The resulting emphasis on the “primacy of politics” has meant the continued primacy of political (and military) history, certainly in university teaching but also in much scholarly and popular historiography. Still, revisionists have made some inroads. Investigating popular and elite society in the nineteenth-century German area, they relativize Prussia’s place in modern German history while at the same time reinterpreting [End Page 669] and redefining notions of bourgeois revolution. Not only do they explore “other” aspects of the revolutionary period and the period of the Bismarckian wars, but they also have found rich new meaning in the “lost decade” of the 1850s. Germany emerges as a modern and modernizing nation, somewhat peculiar but no more so than others that industrialized at about the same time. James Brophy’s book takes this revisionist project one step further by exploring the political economy of railroad development in Prussia between 1830 and German unification. His work spans social, political, and economic historiography, thus linking fields that have developed surprisingly independently of one another. The result is a neat and pleasing book, one which contains an excellent review of literature on nineteenth-century German history, presents information drawn from a wide variety of archival and printed sources, and features good writing throughout. Other historians have emphasized the dominance of the Prussian state and “accommodation” and cooperation among the elites which ruled it. Brophy instead focuses primarily on conflict between state officials, aristocrats, and the growing capitalist class as they argued about ownership and control of the new railway system, devising a financial system that could mobilize the vast amounts of capital it swallowed up, and a host of other ideologically charged items. They did so not in the abstract, however, but rather in battles over specific issues such as scheduling of night trains and the best use of the monies in the Prussian railroad fund. Brophy finds that the Prussian elites did indeed reach a kind of accommodation in accepting a much broader role for the state in the ownership and administration of the railways. The industrial middle class did acquiesce in the eventual nationalization of the railway system in 1878–79, at the same time that free trade was abandoned. Still, this did not mark a capitulation by the capitalist classes to the aristocracy. As Brophy argues, “the eventual nationalization of railways was as much a triumph for smart capital as it was for state power” (p. 170). In a similar vein, he argues that the abandonment of free trade was the final result of a long-term pattern of vacillation on the part of businessmen between preference for free trade and acceptance of state intervention in the economy, all in the pragmatic pursuit of profit. Businessmen emerge in this picture as a confident, forceful, thrusting class, which certainly fits in with the revisionist interpretation. Still, Brophy’s treatment represents a departure of sorts, especially because the determining role of the business cycle looms so large. In fact, he admits in his conclusion that “we could speak . . . of a conjunctural Sonderweg, . . . [if] only in qualified terms” (p. 174). Prussia (and Germany) may be quite peculiar after all. For political, social, and economic historians of the German area, this book represents a major contribution to an ongoing and significant scholarly [End Page 670] dialog. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate, if understandable, that Brophy generally steers clear of full investigation of issues related to the historiography of technology, which would have changed the nature and organization of his book. Historians of technology will...