Industrialisation and Social Inequality in 19th-Century Europe by Hartmut Kaelble

Abstract

690 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE of this major contribution to the held is welcome. (Cecil O. Smith, Jr., reviewed the French edition in Technology and Culture 22 [October 1981]: 771 —76.) Eda Kranakis has reorganized and extended the bibliography, and Alex Keller has revised the technical terminology for this edition. Thomas P. Hughes Dr. Hughes teaches in the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Industrialisation and Social Inequality in 19th-Century Europe. By Hartmut Kaelble. Leamington Spa, Warwickshire: Berg, 1986. Distributed: New York: St. Martin’s Press. Pp. vii + 216; tables, notes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $23.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). Hartmut Kaelble defines social inequality “as referring specifically to the distribution within a society of scarce material and non-material goods and services” (p. 3). The objectives of his book, Industrialisation and Social Inequality in 19th-Century Europe, are to review the existing scholarship that bears on social inequality and to indicate what kind of research social historians should do in the future for a complete understanding of the subject in 19th-century Western Europe. The book addresses three central questions: (1) Did social inequal­ ities increase, decrease, or stay the same during 19th-century indus­ trialization? (2) Did trends in social inequalities between and within classes strengthen or weaken class structures? (3) To what extent and in what ways did industrialization foster or diminish social inequali­ ties? Kaelble divides the book into separate chapters focusing on dif­ ferent types of social inequality, including income and wealth distribution, working conditions and relations, housing availability and conditions, health and mortality, and inter- and intraclass disparities. This research report, as Kaelble calls his book, summarizes and crit­ icizes a number of recent studies by primarily German, British, French, and U.S. scholars. However, none of the cited works does what Kaelble wishes social historians would do; namely, collect massive amounts of quantitative and qualitative data on a wide range of social inequality indicators for all of Western Europe during the 19th century. To be sure, Kaelble acknowledges the importance of more limited local and regional studies in tapping hitherto unused or underutilized archival and published sources and in establishing analytical frameworks for researching and understanding different forms of social inequality. And from these studies Kaelble draws preliminary conclusions about social inequality, class society, and industrialization. He asserts that, in general, social inequality increased during the Industrial Revolution but stabilized or even decreased in the late 19th TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 691 and early 20th centuries. His reading of the literature also suggests that social inequalities furthered class divisions between middle and working classes, but that evidence of disparities within the middle class undermines this conclusion, since it rests on an assumption of class homogeneity. Conclusions about the effect of industrialization itself on social inequality are ambiguous, because of great variation at different times and in different circumstances during the 19th century, and because of the influence of other factors, like nationality, region, sex, attitudes, and politics. This inconclusiveness regarding the relationship between indus­ trialization and social inequality derives from Kaelble’s focus on gen­ eral trends in, rather than specific causes and consequences of, social inequality. It also explains why technology is so peripheral in a study that might well have given it more prominence. In the chapters on inequalities in the workplace and disparities between classes and within strata, Kaelble does mention that technology increased inequalities between skilled and unskilled workers during early industrialization. But consistent with his objectives, he does not develop this causal relationship with any specificity or depth. Kaelble’s argument that social historians need to compile more data on social inequality in 19th-century Europe is indisputable. His book is rife with meaty dissertation topics for graduate students and valu­ able research projects for teams of scholars. But I am still not per­ suaded that the proposed research on general conditions and broad trends of social inequality should replace the case studies of trades, cities, or regions—as Kaelble implies and occasionally states. For the case studies usually include the complex chain of causation, and hu­ man action and response, that are essential to the establishment of social...