Transportation Revolution Research Articles

The transformation of urban transport in the Czech Republic, 1988–1998

Similar to virtually all formerly socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic has been experiencing a transport revolution since the shift from socialism to capitalism a decade ago. From 1988 to 1998, per-capita car ownership rose by 63% in the country as a whole, and by 93% in the capital city of Prague. Vehicle km of motor vehicle use have more than doubled. Conversely, public transport usage has fallen considerably, by 26% in the country as a whole, and by 19% in Prague. This modal shift from public transport to the private car has resulted from increased incomes, access to Western markets, declining real prices of cars and petrol, removal of restrictions on manufacturing and importing cars, and the car's attraction as a symbol of freedom, affluence, and status. The sharp reduction of subsidies for public transport has forced increases in fares and service cutbacks, which have also encouraged the shift toward the private car. Although the private car is very popular, the sudden surge in car ownership and use has caused significant social and environmental problems: roadway congestion, parking shortages, increased traffic accidents, air pollution, and noise. Given their severe financial limitations, Czech cities are struggling to preserve their public transport systems while accommodating the immensely popular private car.

Local Autonomy and Civil War Draft Resistance: Holmes County, Ohio

Local Autonomy and Civil War Draft Resistance: Holmes County, Ohio Kenneth H. Wheeler Among students of draft resistance during the Civil War, the idea that many draft resisters acted out ofboth loyalty to their local community and hostility to the centralizing forces ofmodernization has remained a largely untested prospect. The Holmes County draft rebellion of 1863, popularly known as the Fort Fizzle rebellion, reflects an explicit ideology of localism that undergirded resistance to Federal authority. Residents of Holmes County defied conscription into the Union army through armed opposition to the national government, a resistance that culminated in violent conflict. When forces from the wider world intruded into the lives ofpeople ofHolmes County, the response was assertively localistic. ' Paul Kleppner aptly describedthe prevalence oflocalism in theearly nineteenthcentury Midwest, where numerous isolated, culturally homogeneous localities existed because of limited transportation development. Many persons in these places held a worldview that was localistic rather than cosmopolitan. Instead of seeing themselves as part ofa grand social structure, these people thought about their existence in terms of the local area they inhabited, rarely considering the world beyond.2 Transportation development broke down such isolation, but some places were more affected than others. Thus, in the 1860s, when the influence of the Lincoln administration reached into every village and hamlet in the North, especially 1 Peter Levine, "Draft Evasion in the North during the Civil War, 1863-1865," Journal ofAmerican History 67 (1981): 833. See also James W. Geary, "Civil War Conscription in the North: A Historiographical Review," Civil War History 32 (1986): 208-28, especially 223-24. 2 Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850-1900 (New York: The Free Press, 1970), 101. These isolated places were the "island communities" in Robert H.Wiebe's, The Searchfor Order, 1877-1920 (NewYork: Hill andWang, 1967), xiii. For an excellent description ofthese communities ofEuropean immigrants in the Midwest and the changes they underwent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Jon Gjerde, The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Civil War History, Vol. xlv No. 2 © 1999 by The Kent State University Press I48CIVIL WAR HISTORY through conscription, some Americans responded violently to these intrusions. In Holmes County, the citizens incorporated Democratic party rhetoric and antiwar sentiment into an ideology of localistic patriotism that couldjustify armed opposition to the federal government as a means of defending freedom and liberty.3 On Friday, June 5, 1863, Elias W. Robinson, a Federal enrolling officer, was working in southwestern Holmes County, on French Ridge, registering men for the draft. As Robinson talked with a group of men of French descent, at least one person threw stones at Robinson. Another person probably discharged a pistol as Robinson rode away on his horse. The most extensive account ofthis incident comes from Peter Stuber, a French Ridge resident who told his story in 1 888, twenty-five years after the fact. Stuber, a young man in 1 863, claimed he had seen his Uncle Jacob talking angrily with two men on horseback. One man Stuber did not know; the other was a neighbor named Burton, and, in the words of Stuber, there "existed no good feeling between the Burtons and the Stubers." Stuber recalled that without inquiring into the nature of the conversation he shouted for the two men to leave, threw a stone that hit the unknown man, and threw a piece of wood that hit Burton. Under this assault, the men rode quickly away. As they rode, at least four other men who had quietly witnessed the entire episode now "began to yell and to shout, and to laugh at a great rate. [William] Greiner foolishly shot off a pistol in the air."4 Another account comes from Cora Workman Durbin, who recorded in 1968 the stories told her by her father, B. HarrisonWorkman, and grandfather, Abraham 3 On transportation developments, see George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution (New York, Rinehart, 195 1). On resistance to conscription in the North, see, especially, Geary, "Civil War Conscription in the North." The standard work on Midwestern draft resistance is Robert E...

Data entry-March 31, 2052: a retrospective of solid-state transportation systems

The author discusses SkyTran, the personalized solid-state transportation (SST) system for the public. The author imagines that it is the year 2052 and he is looking back on the 50+ years which have seen a revolution in personal transportation. SkyTran is based on a MagLev monorail system with individual lightweight carriages travelling nonstop at 100 m.p.h. to the traveller's required destination. In this context the author considers; low-cost stations for efficient passenger handling; enhanced safety; cashless transactions; congested downtown station placement; vehicle mass production costs; failsafe operations; and SkyTran on the Moon's surface.

World Economic Expansion and National Security in Pre–World War I Europe

Profound and rapid changes in the costs and risks of international trade are now widely acknowledged to be a potent source of domestic political conflict. By altering the relative prices of goods available from world markets, these changes alter the rewards that flow to different factors of production from different economic activities. These distributional consequences of changing levels of trade, in turn, alter the configuration of interests in the domestic political economy, strain existing political alignments, and enable the construction of new political coalitions. Thus, global changes in the economy, such as the transportation and telecommunications revolutions in the nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries or the collapse of international trade and finance during the interwar years, will have global consequences as they reverberate within and through the domestic politics of all countries that trade on world markets.

Financial Innovation as Facilitator of Merger Activity

In The Theory of Business Enterprise in 1904, Thorstein Veblen developed an explanation of the relationship among the rise of a national market, the phenomenon of destructive price competition, and the merger movement, which produced the modern corporate structure of American enterprise. Veblen described the evolution of financial practices through stock-financed mergers as the solution to a business crisis caused by the technological advances of the late nineteenth century. He argued that a change in the method of capitalizing business assets, coupled with the adoption of innovative financial instruments, allowed the rapid reorganization of industry. Capitalization in excess of tangible assets-made possible through the application of trust certificates, preferred stock, debenture bonds, and/or collateral trust bonds-was crucial to the mass creation of large horizontal mergers. 1 While several elements of his argument, most notably those dealing with the business environment and the revolutions in technology, communication, and transportation, have been generally accepted by later generations of writers, his unifying hypothesis has not enjoyed similar success. The purpose of this paper is to outline this argument, making only cursory reference to those elements that have been accepted, while providing evidence of the changing methods of capitalization during the merger movement of 1895-1904. The evidence presented in support of Veblen's hypothesis is based on the analysis of 517 mergers occurring between 1870 and 1904 and the detailed plans for 339 of these.

The Market Revolution Ate My Homework

The idea of a nineteenth-century market is now all the rage. Historians have acknowledged a post-1815 transportation revolution ever since George Rogers Taylor coined the term in 1951. But as Melvyn Stokes points out in his astute introduction to The Market Revolution in America, and as the book's subtitle reveals, the current concept goes much further. Built on the merger of two fashionable notions, the social transition to capitalism and the political change from republicanism to liberalism, the market has quickly grown to take in economics, law and politics, class relations, gender roles, slavery, religion, ideology-in short, just about everything. In Charles Sellers's epic synthesis, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (1991), the market bestrides the narrative as an omnipresent It, both a pervasive (and insidious) process and the crux of political, cultural, social, and religious controversy. Other works put Market Revolution in capitals and stretch its dates to bring an entire century's history under its sway. In 1994 some leading historians gathered in England to discuss this new concept. Their essays, revised and expanded in The Market Revolution in America, reveal its breadth of possibilities while also exposing some weaknesses. Christopher Clark's chapter on the North and Harry L. Watson's on the South, Amy Dru Stanley's on gender, and Eric Foner's and John Ashworth's on free labor ideology probe the market revolution's ramifications and consequences.' Donald J. Ratcliffe, Richard E. Ellis, and Michael F. Holt apply the market-revolution idea to politics. Daniel Walker Howe and Richard Carwardine question its application to religion, and Sean Wilentz (writing on

Eurologistik, » Europäische« Verkehrspolitik und die Entwicklung eines transnationalen (Güter-) Transportsystems

The paper discusses the transformation of national transport systems in Europe into a transnational European system. While the modern transportation revolution is frequently cited as independent variable to support the globalization thesis, the way transport systems function is by and !arge ignored. Examining the transport system as dependent variable allows to show that global internalization is strongly restricted because of political and economic reasons. The market radical however pragmatic approach of neoliberal govemments in Europe has expanded mechanisms of market and state regulations of transportation at the European level both to meet of competing centers of the triad and the demands of !arge industrial and trading companies in search of logistical rationalization strategies.

The Development of Local Public Services, 1650-1860: Lessons from Middletown, Connecticut

Illustrations Preface Abbreviations Introduction Defining the Community Who Counts in the Community? Financing Local Public Goods Governmental Bookkeeping and Public Goods Poor Relief Transportation: Basic Road Services Transportation: Bridges and Sidewalks The Transportation Revolution Fire and Water Policies in the City Who Will Pay? The Fate of Miscellaneous Services County Buildings, Yes in My Backyard Conclusions Appendix: Supplemental Regressions and Descriptive Statistics Bibliography Index

Charting Taiwan's Technological Future: The Impact of Globalization and Regionalization

There is now general agreement among observers of international economic and technology affairs that the world has entered a period characterized by the interplay of two potent and possibly dialectical forces - globalization and regionalization. Globalization, which is clearly manifested in the changing nature of competition in industries ranging from textiles to telecommunications, is being driven by a combination of diverse forces, including the communication and transportation revolutions, the growing trends towards liberalization, privatization and deregulation, and the rapid diffusion of technologies around the world. Multinational companies (MNCs) have become the principal purveyors of globalization as they seek out new markets and search the world for access to critical R D, production and distribution assets irrespective of where they may be found. Regionalization, on the other hand, has primarily been driven by macro-political forces, with governments as the initiating agents, as in die case of the formation of the European Union and the North American Free Trade Association. Where regionalization is driven by explicit and overt government actions and policies it can more often than not be seen as an anathema to globalization; politicallyinduced regionalization in these cases is driven, in large part, by concerns about loss of national competitiveness and a decline in economic welfare.

Who Financed the Transportation Revolution? Regional Divergence and Internal Improvements in Antebellum Pennsylvania and Virginia

Comparing investment in transportation companies in Albemarle county, Virginia, and Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, I analyze why nineteenth-century internal improvements revolutionized the northern economy, but only seemed to increase the South's dependence upon plantation agriculture. In both counties local investors and financed early improvements.

The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography by James E. Vance, Jr

technology and culture Book Reviews 843 built. Thus, the actual impact of the French tradition at West Point remains an open question. Shallat concludes his study by documenting the scandals, failures, criticism, and controversies the Corps confronted before and after the Civil War. Once again he reinforces the idea that Corps history needs to be seen as part of the larger political and cultural evolution from the Federalists to the Jacksonians to the Whigs and Republi­ cans. His epilogue attempts to put this study, which covers approxi­ mately eight decades of the 19th century, into a contemporary per­ spective. This book was published as part of an American Studies series edited by William H. Goetzmann. From the American Studies per­ spective one could ask why the biographies depict such one-dimen­ sional men. What books did these bureaucrats read? Could Shallat’s thesis be enriched by understanding how the songs these men sang, the theaters they attended, the churches they supported, the family celebrations they planned or the stories they told fit the technology they designed? An American Studies interest in the visual context is also truncated. The work has ninety-three illustrations, but the pho­ tos have no credits, and of the twenty-nine paintings and sketches depicted only three identify the artist. As one would expect, twentysix portraits accompany the biographies, but only three of these identify the painter. However, as one moves from the cultural to the technological the human factor is more often identified. Of sixteen engineering designs, nine credit the draftsman; of sixteen maps, twelve identify the topographer. Can one identify the French and British traditions by looking at these designs or maps? Does the the­ sis become clearer by studying the portraits or paintings or sketches? Is there such a thing as British cartography or French hydraulic to­ pography? This work, as one would expect of a revised dissertation, has a wonderful bibliography and a provocative thesis based on secondary sources and government reports. Shallat’s focus on engineering as a bureaucracy that has thrived and survived for more than 1*70 years will be a significant consideration for anyone interested in the conti­ nuity and ideology of technology. Raymond H. Merritt Dr. Merritt is dean of the College of Social Sciences at St. Cloud State University. The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography. By James E. Vance, Jr. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Pp. xvi+348; illustrations, maps, notes, index. $39.95 (hard­ cover) . In this study of the impact of geography and technology on the development ofthe railway systems ofthe United States and Canada, 844 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE James E. Vance, Jr., elaborates on some of the major themes of his earlier work, Capturing the Horizon: The Historical Geography of Trans­ portation since the Transportation Revolution ofthe Sixteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1986). (The omission of Mexico, despite the book’s title, is not explained.) Vance argues that neither of these rail systems followed the British model, and that the Canadian railways largely emulated their cousins to the south. Geographical factors determined the location ofrailroads in both countries whose systems evolved through technological innovations. The British had con­ structed railroads to supplement existing trade routes that had been overtaxed by the Industrial Revolution. In the United States and Canada the railways were built through unsettled territories before economic development could support the carriers. By 1917, how­ ever, the vast expanse of North America was interlaced with railways more sophisticated technologically than their counterparts around the globe. Vance sets up a straw man at the outset of the book, arguing that historians have erred in contending that Great Britain served as the basic model for systems elsewhere. It is unlikely that any scholar would make such a case today, but Vance eagerly sets forth to demol­ ish the “myth.” The railways in Great Britain engaged in “bestism,” he contends, spending vast sums on infrastructure. Superb bridges and tunnels kept curvature and gradients to a minimum while traffic demands on the carriers led to multitrack lines. Because of the high quality ofthe British physical plant, itwas possible for the locomotive builders to produce small, low-powered, technologically unsophisti­ cated...

World economy in the 1990s

A virtual revolution in transport, telecommunications, and computational technologies is rapidly blurring the distinction between domestic and international economies....any domestic growth strategy must, almost by definition, be an export-oriented strategy....the highest growth rates and most exciting new market opportunities are in the Western Hemisphere, in Latin America, and most especially in the Pacific Rim. - Roy MacLaren, Canadian Minister for International Trade (italic added).

Bulk trade and maritime transport costs: The evolution of global markets

Since the 1950s a transport revolution has occurred comparable to events in the late nineteenth century when sailing ships was replaced by steam vessels. Freight rates for bulk products have decreased 65–70% due to improved maritime technology. Formerly separate markets for bulk products have been unified globally. A conclusion is that the low freight rates since the early 1980s will level out in a future perspective. Price peaks caused by political and military crises like the Korean war, the Suez crisis, OPEC I and OPEC II also seem to be of diminishing importance over time. The world market has become much less sensitive to external shocks due to many alternative sources of supply and many alternative routes for transport.

The Texture of Industry: An Archaeological View of the Industrialization of North America by Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone

406 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE This is an important book which will provoke thought and contin­ ued debate. Because every page is dense with carefully marshaled information, it does not make for easy reading, though the transla­ tion—otherwise apparently admirable—may marginally have com­ pounded this difficulty by occasional misconceptions in technical terms. Furthermore, many cost comparisons would have been more meaningful had a guide (however crude) been provided to contempo­ rary sterling/mark exchange rates. Cambridge University Press is to be congratulated on making the book available in English and—to hell with the trouble and expense—putting the footnotes where they should be, at the bottom of the relevant pages. It is a pity that the author did not employ the opportunity presented by this English version to comment on the various recent contributions to the history of steel (e.g., Kenneth Barraclough’s important study, Steelmaking, 1850—1900 [London: Institute of Metals, 1990]) that have appeared since the mid-1980s. No one could have done so with greater authority. Peter L. Payne Dr. Payne, professor of economic history at the University of Aberdeen, is the author of Colvilles and the Scottish Steel Industry (Oxford, 1979), and Growth and Contrac­ tion: Scottish Industry, c. 1860—1990 (Glasgow, 1992). He is currently examining the reasons for the virtual abandonment of iron- and steelmaking in Scotland in 1993. The Texture of Industry: An Archaeological View of the IndustrialiTMtion of North America. By Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 442; illustrations, notes, bibliography, indexes. $49.95. The Texture of Industry tells a not unfamiliar tale about the course of industrialization. Robert B. Gordon and Patrick M. Malone, em­ phasizing changes that occurred from the late 18th century through the early 20th, write of many interconnected phenomena, such as: the transportation revolution; the rise of mechanization, the division of labor, and the factory system; the decline of the “Wooden Age” and the ascendency of petroleum, coal, iron, and steel; the oftentimes rapacious use of natural resources; industry’s locational shift toward larger urban areas; the evolution of prime movers and power trans­ mission systems; and the mass production of consumer goods. Still, Gordon and Malone managed to put a new twist on all of this. As the book’s subtitle informs us, theirs is an “archaeological view” of industrialization. Industrial archaeology (IA), a field of study largely born in Britain, has been practiced in North America now for nearly a quarter cen­ tury. Gordon and Malone’s work is the best wide-ranging IA book yet produced on this side of the Atlantic. The authors define IA simply enough. It “is the study of historic industrial activity through TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 407 analysis of both material and documentary evidence” (p. 5). Their “objective is to expand the body of information on which historical conclusions are based” (p. 15). In short, Gordon and Malone want historians to be inclusive, not exclusive, in their handling of evidence, and to look at words and things together as they try to describe and interpret the industrial past. In a short part 1, “Industrial Archaeology,” the authors enthusiasti­ cally proselytize a bit about what things can tell us, and they discuss an array of IA activities and techniques that can be used to learn from sites, structures, and artifacts. Then they practice what they preach as they take readers, in part 2, on a tour of “Industrial Land­ scapes” and, in part 3, on an inspection of “Industrial Workplaces.” Gordon and Malone write about the smells and sounds of industry. They look at machining marks on rifle parts; at imitative experiments done with mid-19th-century Lincoln milling machines; at the patterns of waste tailings left behind by mining companies; at wounded walls struck by flying shuttles; and at a blindingly bright arc lamp operated in the dining room of a somewhat eccentric museum curator. At the same time, while emphasizing material culture, the authors decidedly do not ignore historiography and the written record documenting industrialization. Indeed, their IA orientation, if anything, broadens the range of literature they regularly consult and draw from. They...

The founding rate of venture capital firms in three European countries (1970–1990)

In this article, the sectorial and environmental forces that facilitate or inhibit the creation of venture capital companies are studied in the three European countries where the industry is most developed: the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. The focus is on the start-up phase of the industry, the period from 1970–1990. The founding of firms can be studied on four different levels: entrepreneurial, organizational, population, and macroeconomic. In this study, a population approach is taken; this implies that we do not attempt to explain any single founding, but rather the aggregate number of foundings that occur in an industry in a certain period in a certain country. According to the organizational ecology theory, the population density (i.e., the total number of organizations in a population) is the major environmental factor that affects the founding rate through two processes. Initially, when the density is low, each founding eases new foundings, because the simple prevalence of a form tends to give it legitimacy (thereby spurring imitations), the training ground for qualified personnel grows and the supporting networks are widened and strengthened. The legitimation process does not grow forever: once enough organizations of a certain kind exist, legitimation attains a ceiling. As the number of organizations increases, the second process becomes dominant: the competition for resources (raw material, personnel, customers, capital) grows, leading to a negative relationship between the density and the founding rate, everything else being equal. Thus, the founding rate declines as the number of organizations increases, once a threshold is reached. The major hypothesis that is tested here is that the population density has an inverted U-shaped effect on the founding rate of venture capital organizations. In addition, the effect that the venture capital firms of the three countries have on each other is studied. Two populations are said to interact when the populations affect each other's growth rate, but the interaction need not be symmetrical. The second hypothesis, tested in this study, is that populations in different countries have a positive effect on each other and not a competitive effect because the legitimating effect does not halt at geographical borders. Yet, the competition for resources (capital, people, deals) among geographically different populations is limited in this industry. This study is valuable because until now, the existing ecological studies focus on long-established industries. Testing, the theory in a young industry that emerged only in the seventies (in Europe) has merits in its own right, because the technological progress after the Second World War has altered the organizational environment tremendously. The communication and transportation revolutions may have especially influenced the way in which organizations interact with each other and with the environment. The venture capital firms are furthermore special in the way they are organized with the dual structure of management company and investment fund(s). If the theory holds in this young industry, important additional evidence will be given that the theory is truly applicable to “populations of all types, in any time period, and in any society” (Carroll 1988, p. 18). Finally, this study extends the theory by giving evidence on how industries in different countries may interact upon each other. We show empirically that the major factor that influences the overall founding rate in each of the three countries is the density of the industry, i.e., the number of organizations that already exist in the industry; this confirms the population ecology theory. When the density is low, adding a new organization to the industry raises the probability of a subsequent founding; when the density is high, the contrary is true. The institutional changes considered here, such as the establishment of tax transparent legal entities or state guarantees against losses (in the Netherlands) and the establishment of secondary stock markets, do not significantly influence the founding rate in any of the three countries. Moreover, the Dutch foundings are positively influenced by the British density and the French foundings by the Dutch density; the British foundings are, on the contrary, negatively influenced by the Dutch density. The competitive effects between the Netherlands and the U.K. are thus more important than initially thought. The relationship between the density and the founding rate is the strongest, most consistent, and most significant relationship found in this study. Thus, the number of organizations that already exist in an industry is very important in explaining the founding of organizations, apart from, for example, the personality of the entrepreneur or from the networks in which he or she is involved. This indicates that, when trying to explain the founding of organizations, the industry structure, and more specifically the number of organizations that exist at the moment of the founding, cannot be ignored.

Modal shift in Eastern Germany

The economic and political reunification of Germany in 1990 unleashed a transportation revolution in Eastern Germany. After forty years of public transport dominance under socialism, auto ownership and use skyrocketed with the transition to capitalism. In only three years, ridership on public transport fell by almost 50%, and auto registrations per 1,000 population rose by almost 60%. The main reason for the sudden shift in modal split is the large increase in real per-capita incomes of Eastern Germans. Their purchasing power rose dramatically thanks to massive financial aid from Western Germany and access to hard currency for the first time. In addition, the relative cost of auto use has fallen sharply since reunification because public transport fares rose ten-fold, while gasoline prices and auto prices fell. The massive shift from public transport to the auto has caused severe problems of pollution, safety, equity, and congestion in Eastern German cities, partly because of the suddenness of the modal shift. Urban transport policy in Eastern Germany should adopt some of the strategies used for years in Western Germany to tame the automobile, while at the same time allowing high levels of auto ownership. Such strategies include auto-free zones, traffic calming, extensive bicycle pathways, vehicle emission standards, and parking restrictions. Finally, large investments will have to be made in Eastern Germany's dilapidated roadway and public transport infrastructure.

Book Review: Sailing into Twilight: Finnish Shipping in an Age of Transport Revolution, 1860–1914

Book Review: Sailing into Twilight: Finnish Shipping in an Age of Transport Revolution, 1860–1914

Edward Everett: the intellectual in the turmoil of politics

This work examines Everett's public career and the age of rapid change it spanned. Extreme political tensions, sectional rivalry, and merging urban problems accompanied the revolution in transportation and the development of industry. Everett's responses to these changes constitute the heart of this biography.

Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790-1860 (review)

350CIVIL WAR HISTORY as some of her more famous sisters. Grew's life and work mirrors that of other female activists of her generation. Brown does a fine job informing the reader about the details of Grew's career as a reformer. Donna M. DeBlasio Ohio Historical Society Canals for a Nation: The Canal Era in the United States, 1790-1860. By Ronald E. Shaw. (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1990. Pp. x, 284. $28.00.) Canals for a Nation is an ambitious comparative survey of over four thousand miles of canals and their centrality to American life during the early nineteenth century. Ronald E. Shaw begins his study with the founders' recommendations for binding the republic together through systematic internal improvements. In subsequent chapters, he examines how states transferred and adapted European canal technology to the American landscape and how they attempted to preserve republican values amidst the vigorous nationalism that spawned those canals. Shaw argues that canals emerged from the mercantilist tradition of government encouragement of economic development. Popular opposition to federal assistance, however, forced canals to become products of activist states and private enterprise. Shaw divides his study into four distinct regional networks in which he addresses canal developments within each state. He focuses on political sponsorship and opposition, financing, administration, technological innovations, construction, and the commercial impact on each region. He injects a pleasant human perspective by incorporating travel accounts and reports of the social impact of canals on individual communities. Shaw also examines leading families and personalities involved in promoting and creating the canals in their respective states and regions. These individual canal histories often bear great resemblance to each other, indicating the degree to which a canal's success or an individual's leadership inspired projects elsewhere within the republic's interior. Throughout the volume, Shaw emphasizes a "canal era" rather than a "canal system" as envisioned since the 1790s. He concludes that any sense of system was illusory since canals were not cohesive or integrated by a common aim, a point emphasized by the book's regional divisions. Rather, canals evolved to meet local needs and to improve the competitive edge and profit-seeking interests of a specific locality. Many emerged to rival the Erie Canal, seeking to redirect trade from that corridor to cities and ports that best served particular local and regional interests. Central to Shaw's study is the dynamic role of canals in the development of American life. Canals encouraged western settlement and urban growth, transmitted culture and ideas, stimulated the creation of BOOK REVIEWS351 transportation businesses, assisted in industrial development, opened coal and ore fields and agricultural hinterlands, and introduced new technologies , some of which provided for the rapid extension of railroads and the eventual demise of the canals themselves. Canals for a Nation is an important contribution to the transportation literature of the early republic, joining George Roger Taylor's The Transportation Revolution (1951) as a work that transcends the local scene and places canals within the emerging regional and national economies. By drawing on numerous local and regional histories, Shaw illustrates how canals were integral in prompting new public policies, public-private enterprises, and continued debates on the role of government in internal improvements. Shaw's narrative gives thematic unity to numerous canal studies representing political, economic, business, and local history fields. Although he concludes that canals may not have fulfilled their original goals and that they produced economic crises in several states, Shaw provides a clear, concise analysis of how canals evolved, thrived, and contributed to the vitality of life in the early American republic. David G. Vanderstel Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans. By Charles Royster. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Pp. 523. $30.00.) This is a paradoxical book that requires, and accordingly will receive, a paradoxical review. The first paradox is that it is not a book, at least not in the ordinary sense of being a work that presents either a chronological narrative of events or a systematically developed thesis. Instead it is a collection, almost a potpourri, of essays about various facets and episodes of the Civil...

The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest, Mississippi 1770-1860 (review)

360CIVIL WAR HISTORY valuable guidebook to America's military parks. This book will help introduce tourists and buffs alike to both familiar and obscure battle sites. Richard A. Sauers Lewisburg, Pennsylvania The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest, Mississippi 1770-1860. By John Hebron Moore. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Pp. xii, 323. Cloth $40.00, paper $17.00.) John Hebron Moore's The Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom in the Old Southwest is a worthy companion to his earlier study, Agriculture in Antebellum Mississippi. It is not merely an update of the earlier volume, however; it is a more extensive examination of topics and issues that were raised but not thoroughly treated in that study. Moore traces the agricultural revolution of the 183Os and 1840s, which introduced new planting techniques and a new machine technology that in turn spawned a revolution in water and rail transportation. In a chapter on manufacturing, Moore details the "complementary industries [which] developed in the towns to provide essential services for farmers, planters, and townsmen as well as for steamboats and railroads." This long recognized agricultural historian takes a turn at social history in such chapters as "Agricultural Slavery," "Rural Whites," "Towns and Villages," "White Inhabitants of the Towns," and "Urban Blacks." In the brief final chapter, "Secession from the Union," Moore assesses the political ramifications of the Cotton Kingdom's renewed "confidence in the slave worked cotton plantation that was the basic unit in [its] socioeconomic system." Moore's well-conceived and well-written study of the Old South's leading cotton-producing state is enriched by the generous use of maps and charts, two appendices, a bibliography, and a thorough index. And the Louisiana State University Press, which richly deserves its high standing among university presses, maintained its high design standard. The book is a happy blend of good narrative and interpretive history. It is essential reading for students of the American South and for those interested in understanding the long-term underlying and more complex causes of the Civil War. David G. Sansing University of Mississippi Admiral of the Amazon: John Randolph Tucker, His Confederate Colleagues , and Peru. By David P. Werlich. (Charlottesville, Virginia, and London: University Press of Virginia, 1990. Pp. xv, 353. $29.95.) Few people have ever heard of John Randolph Tucker. Even most Civil War historians do not seem to be aware of his many contributions to ...