Transcontinental Trade Research Articles

Ancestral Admixture Is the Main Determinant of Global Biodiversity in Fission Yeast.

Mutation and recombination are key evolutionary processes governing phenotypic variation and reproductive isolation. We here demonstrate that biodiversity within all globally known strains of Schizosaccharomyces pombe arose through admixture between two divergent ancestral lineages. Initial hybridization was inferred to have occurred ∼20–60 sexual outcrossing generations ago consistent with recent, human-induced migration at the onset of intensified transcontinental trade. Species-wide heritable phenotypic variation was explained near-exclusively by strain-specific arrangements of alternating ancestry components with evidence for transgressive segregation. Reproductive compatibility between strains was likewise predicted by the degree of shared ancestry. To assess the genetic determinants of ancestry block distribution across the genome, we characterized the type, frequency, and position of structural genomic variation using nanopore and single-molecule real-time sequencing. Despite being associated with double-strand break initiation points, over 800 segregating structural variants exerted overall little influence on the introgression landscape or on reproductive compatibility between strains. In contrast, we found strong ancestry disequilibrium consistent with negative epistatic selection shaping genomic ancestry combinations during the course of hybridization. This study provides a detailed, experimentally tractable example that genomes of natural populations are mosaics reflecting different evolutionary histories. Exploiting genome-wide heterogeneity in the history of ancestral recombination and lineage-specific mutations sheds new light on the population history of S. pombe and highlights the importance of hybridization as a creative force in generating biodiversity.

Tajikistan’s Perspective on Eurasia

In this article, the place of Central Asia, particularly of Tajikistan, in the Eurasian continent has been examined. The slow and confident transfer of engine of the world economy from the West to the East and South increasing the role of the countries located between them. Located between Europe, Russia and South Asia, five Central Asian countries are interested in the development and participation in broader transcontinental trade and transit corridors connecting in all directions. Tajikistan has a unique opportunity to become a hub of trade and transit as it is located at the crossroads of growing ties between South and Central Asia.

ЕПОХА СЛОВ’ЯН НА БАЛТИЦІ: ЕКОНОМІЧНЕ ПІДНЕСЕННЯ СЛОВ’ЯНСЬКОГО ПОМОР’Я У РАННЬОМУ СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧЧІ

Abstract Background. The article attempts to explore the reasons of the economic rise in the Slav-inhabited Baltic Sea region, including the role of geographical factors; the impact of international trade on the economic development of the Slavic region; the role of the coastal Slavs in developing the Baltic trade routes as well as the network of river and land communications in Central and Eastern Europe. The paper mainly focuses on the participation of the Slavs in the formation of transcontinental trade routes and the development of trade between Europe and the Arab East. Purpose. To explore medieval written sources, archaeological sources and historical literature on the economic development of the Baltic Slavs; identify the main factors of their economic rise, including the establishment of cities and the development of trade. Results. The following conclusions are made in the article: the first early medieval cities in the southern Baltic were founded by the Slavs; as early as in the VII century in the Oder river basin alone there were about a hundred settlements in the lands of lutych tribes. The cities founded by the Slavs on the southwest coast of the Baltic were large trade centers such as Veligrad (ger. Mecklenburg), Volyn (ger. Yumna), Staryhrad (ger. Oldenburg), Kolobreg, Shchetin, Arkona and others. According to the German chronicler Adam Bremensky the Slavic city of Volyn located on the island at the mouth of the Oder river, was one of the largest early medieval cities in Europe and a major international trading center. The emergence of early cities was stimulated by economic development in the Baltic Slavic region, including agriculture and crafts. However, trade was the main factor in the economic rise of the Slav-inhabited Baltic sea region. The favorable geographical location contributed to the formation in its territory of a network of waterways and landways, which were branches of international trade highways. Contrary to established views of the Slavs as exclusively agricultural people, sources indicate that the main occupation of the coastal Slavs was trade. They also engaged in the maritime piracy, the centers of which were the islands of Fembra (ger. Femarn) and Ruyan (ger. Rügen). The coastal Slavic tribes were pioneers in paving the first trade routes and in developing international trade in the Baltic region. Trade activities of the coastal Slavs to a large extent ensured the establishment of trade links between different regions of Europe and the development of transcontinental trade between Europe and the Arab East. The transcontinental water and land routes passed through the lands inhabited by the Slavs (Slavonia). An important role in its development in the early Middle Ages also belongs to the Danube Slavs (the state of Samo, Great Moravia) and Rus. Key words: early Medieval Age, Baltic Slavs, obodrytes, lutyches, ruyans, international trade routes, trade with the Arab East.

Geoinformation monitoring of key queries of search engines, and geotagging photos in the North-Caucasian segment of the tourist route ‘Great Silk Road’

ABSTRACTThe Great Silk Road is a transcontinental trade way that has been bridging the East and the West for many ages now. The Great Silk Road nowadays is viewed as a channel for international cooperation in the area of diplomatic relations, culture, science, trade and tourism. In the year of 2017, Russia is launching the Great Silk Road – an interregional tourist route through the North Caucasus. However, due to the lack of official statistical data, it is not possible to evaluate the demand and the tourist traffic at the destinations along the route. One of the possible ways to get the data is to use search engines and social media. This article offers an analysis of the seasonality for the tourist demand regarding the Great Silk Road destinations, which is done through key retrieval queries submitted to the Yandex search system. Photo geotags have been used to identify the age and gender structure of the tourist flow, as well as the geography of the tourist arrivals. The most popular destinations of the North-Caucasian part of the Great Silk Road have been identified.

S.Barisitz. Central asia and the silk road: economic rise and decline over several millennia. Studies in Economic History Series. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. 282+xv. ISBN: 978‐3‐319‐51212‐9.

The history of the Silk Road that links the East (theOrient, in particular China) and theWest (the Occident, in particular theMediterranean area) is a fascinating topic in premodern economic history. The Road is not an actual road but rather a network of potential geographical connections and its efficacy to function as a mode for transcontinental trade to a large extent depends on heterogeneous and changing institutional conditions. Clearly then, the Road can only truly connect when each of its heterogeneous network elements is reasonably safe and stable. An interesting aspect of the Road is that its history spans so many different cultures, civilizations, and empires. Therefore, changing conditions of time and place are associated with periods in which the Road is a stronger trade route and periods of relative decline. It continued reemergence time and again testifies the importance of historic conditions for international trade that echoes in the recent Chinese plans to create a China-centered trading network (theOne Road, One Belt initiative) that aims to increase connectivity of the Eurasian countries.

Veliky Novgorod in the Research of Ural University

This article provides an overview of studies focusing on Veliky Novgorod carried out in Ural Federal University. For the purposes of the study, the authors describe the history of archaeological excavations and the formation of the source base for the study of Veliky Novgorod, a unique centre of the Eastern European Middle Ages; also, the article describes the role the teaching staff and students played in collecting this material throughout almost forty years. This has become possible thanks to a longstanding collaboration between the Department of the History of Russia of Ural Federal University and the Department of Archaeology of Moscow University, the Novgorod State Integrated Museum Reserve, the Institute of Archaeology (RAS, Moscow), and the Institute for the History of Material Culture (St Petersburg), all of which share creative contacts. The article singles out some directions of studies conducted by the university staff and their students, focusing on different aspects connected with Veliky Novgorod. The research covers a wide range of areas, from the studies of archaeological artefacts, the genesis and evolution of the social system and political institutions, the history of Ancient Rus’ musical culture as reflected in Novgorod manuscripts; from the study of Old Russian canon law to the role Veliky Novgorod played in the system of transcontinental trade relations and cultural contacts. Finally, the authors describe the applied character of certain areas of research in the sphere of restoration of mediaeval musical instruments and the development of itineraries for the network of historical and educational tourism in Novgorod and the surrounding territories.

Russian food exports: Trends, opportunities, and priorities

This paper considers the problems of developing Russian food exports under the conditions of neoglobalization, the formation of interstate and transcontinental free trade zones, and the complication of regional and world economic relations.

The Black Winter of 1860–61

This article focuses on one of the most serious cases of famine in Iran in the nineteenth century. Reading through a wide range of contemporary documents, Kazemi uses this episode as a case study to talk about the larger problem of subsistence crises and natural disasters in Iran and the Middle East in the nineteenth century. He contends that the causes of the 1860–61 famine were a series of interlocking issues that had affected the political economy of the Qajar state. The longer-term economic and political developments in the run-up to the crisis had an important role in setting up a broad context in which subsistence crises of this kind could occur frequently. Loss of transcontinental trade and territories, the decline of local industries, worsening trade deficits, the devaluation and scarcity of currency, and chronic imperial and state-building warfare in an increasingly globalized economy had led to the worsening fiscal crisis of the Iranian state and the rise of what was essentially new and predatory capital in the Qajar grain market. In such an atmosphere, people had become vulnerable more than ever before to natural and manmade disasters. Many, if not all, of the processes explained here were central in the making of disasters elsewhere in the Middle East. The factors that brought about these unfortunate episodes in the region were interconnected and had local, regional, and above all global dimensions.

Lex Arbitri, Lex Curia and Lex Contractus in Brazilian Jurisdiction

International arbitration arose as a global phenomenon with the growth of transcontinental trade in a progressive smaller world. As its role and importance have become defined, the use of arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution has increased all around the world accordingly. However, even with unified international documents, such as the 1958 New York Convention, 1965 Washington Convention, 1985-2006 United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, or UNICITRAL Model Law, arbitration has been approached differently domestically, thus facing conflicts or controversies. This paper has as main objective to explain the key points concerning arbitration within the Brazilian legal system. The evolution of arbitration will be studied since the Iberian Union in the colonial era in order to bring about the formation of its legal characteristics. Besides, the current Brazilian Arbitration Act, promulgated in 1996, will be analyzed focusing on its provision gaps. The Sulamerica-Enesa arbitral award will be the case study of this paper, which will contribute to a better understanding of the increase in conflicts with the use of this method of dispute resolution. Last, an overview of the Brazilian arbitration legislation as well as its “gaps” will determine that in spite of arbitration being successfully implemented in Brazil, there is still an eminent need to improve legislation, which will be substantial to avoid further conflicts in lex arbitri, lex curia and lex contractus within arbitration itself.

Territories of Empire: U.S. Writing from the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican Independence by Andy Doolen (review)

Reviewed by: Territories of Empire: U.S. Writing from the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican Independence by Andy Doolen Brian Rouleau (bio) Territories of Empire: U.S. Writing from the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican Independence andy doolen New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 270 pp. In his latest book, Andy Doolen discusses the significance, to early America, of what he calls “cartographic texts.” An array of sources fall under that heading—from maps and reports on exploration to filibustering memoirs and novelizations of the Mexican war for independence—all united by a common interest in dramatizing US territorial expansion. This obsession with territorialization, the expansion of America’s geographic borders, became the means by which authors, poets, travelers, and politicians collectively worked to legitimize US possession of the heavily contested North American continent. In zeroing in on several key cartographic texts, Doolen reminds us not only of the significance of frontier or western writers to national development at an early nineteenth-century moment when the Atlantic seaboard’s “sophisticates” tend to receive more scholarly attention but also of the crucial role such nonstate actors played in the growth of American empire. And in covering the years 1800–30 explicitly, the author also sheds light on a neglected moment before the trope of Manifest Destiny shaped representation of the West and its peoples. What we gain from Doolen’s creative periodization is added appreciation for the sense of contingency and possibilities present at a moment when US domination of the hemisphere was hardly assured. Each chapter, then, deals with a different cartographic text (or type of cartographic text) engaged in describing or reimagining the relationship between the nation and what were, at the time, its ever-shifting borders. In the first chapter, Doolen presents an analytically robust reading of several [End Page 225] key texts surrounding the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. His core concern there has to do with American efforts to integrate the cultural and ethnic mélange concentrated around New Orleans into the national body politic. In a process labeled “empire by deferral,” US officials delayed Louisiana statehood and held “racially impure” French and Spanish Creoles at arm’s length in a bid to allow time for white American citizens to emigrate there and tutor the extant populace in the art of republican self-government. But if that was the plan, reality unfolded quite differently. Model citizens failed to materialize in sufficient numbers, and those who did quickly found themselves under suspicion for possible involvement in Aaron Burr’s supposed conspiracy to detach much of the West from US hands. Doolen presents fascinating evidence detailing the ways in which previously suspect Creoles seized upon swirling rumors of treason among American arrivals to demonstrate their loyalty to the new Washington, DC–backed regime in the area. With their fidelity proven yet again in 1811, when they played a pivotal role in suppressing the German Coast slave uprising outside New Orleans, Creoles were able to extract favorable legal concessions (particularly as pertained to their slaves) and secure social position from a territorial government that initially had spurned them. Doolen presents the entire episode as an educational moment in the future history of US empire: faced with perpetual crises of loyalty on its western borders, American leaders learned the power of promoting white racial solidarity at the nation’s margins as an antidote for disunion. Subsequent chapters show a similar regard for many of these themes: territorialization as a process negotiated between periphery and center; cartographic texts as instrumental to solidifying the bonds of empire; and early expansion characterized by much trial and error and a steep learning curve. Hence one chapter’s examination of Zebulon Pike’s exploration narrative, fraught as it was with a sense of failure following his capture by Spanish military officials. And yet Doolen urges us to reapproach Pike as the influential figure he was at the time (only much later overshadowed by Lewis and Clark) and reread his Account of Expeditions as a triumphant narrative about the discovery of crucial transcontinental trade routes and the successful conduct of Indian diplomacy. The author also does equally impressive work in a pair of chapters dedicated to investigating two (very different...

Oxhide ingots in the European North?

The above paper by Ling and Stos-Gale raises interesting questions about the extent and effects of trans-continental trade and travel in the Bronze Age. Of course, there is nothing new in the suggestion that Scandinavia was closely linked to the eastern Mediterranean in this period: Kristian Kristiansen, and before him Jan Bouzek, Klavs Randsborg and Peter Schauer have been saying just that for many years (e.g. Bouzek 1966; Randsborg 1967; Schauer 1985; Kristiansen 1994). What is new is the two-fold suggestion that metal was travelling from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, as shown by metal analysis, and that this is reflected in the rock art by what are presented here as depictions of oxhide ingots.

Глобализация регионализма: вызовы и риски для России

TЕhe article deals with the intensive development of the process of regionalization of the world trade and analyzes grounds for this process. It traces the evolution of regional trade agreements which account for the constant growth of mutual deliveries. The author pays attention to the transformation of regionalism which acquires step by step transcontinental character. The article states that the regional integration apart from the positive influence on trade and investment flow also has negative effects, namely erosion of the regime of most-favored-nation treatment and threats of the beginning of chaos in the international trade and investment exchange. The author studies projects of the creation of global superblocks of the integration type – Transatlantic, Eastern Asiatic, Asiatic -Pacific. In author’s opinion, their emergence will lead to radical changes of the institutional configuration of the world economic space which will turn into a two-level structure. On the first level rules of the multilateral trade system (WTO) will be applied. On the second level principles and regulations fixed by global multilateral trade and economic agreements with participation of all leaders of the international trade will act. The author concludes that Russia has to choose optimal direction of its participation in the global economic. Correspondingly, attention is paid to the problems and risks inherent in its connection with transcontinental trade and economic agreements which are objects of multilateral negotiations at the present time. In particular, the author states that in case of establishment of “mild” forms of integration in the Asiatic -Pacific or European directions Russia will have to open – completely or to a great extent – its domestic market for goods from the countries of the regions mentioned. The losses caused by such a disclosure might outweigh the benefits from liberalization of the access to the markets of partner countries.

Ghana's Glass Beadmaking Arts in Transcultural Dialogues

Ghanaian powder-glass beads first captured my attention in 1990, when closely examining a strand of Asante waist beads purchased in Kumasi’s Central Market. Looking at the complex designs of different colored glasses, I was struck with the realization that each bead had been skillfully and painstakingly crafted. This seemingly humble and largely unexamined art merited closer study and greater understanding (Fig. 1). I worked with Christa Clarke, Senior Curator for the Arts of Global Africa at the Newark Museum, to develop the 2008–2010 exhibition “Glass Beads of Ghana” at the Newark Museum to introduce the general public to this largely overlooked art (Fig. 2). The following study provides a more in-depth examination of Ghanaian glass beadmaking history and contemporary practice. Ghana’s glass beadmaking arts are arts of engagement with the wider world, from their seventeenth-century beginnings to contemporary practices. The Ghanaian glass beadmaking tradition is one of several regional glass beadmaking traditions in West Africa, and all of these traditions evolved over many centuries in the context of long-distance trade. Transcontinental trade over the Sahara from the eighth century ce and ocean-going trade from the 1480s transferred finished beads as well as raw materials for glass bead production and introduced knowledge of various methods of working beads and glass. Interregional trade provided networks for sharing local and transcontinental beadmaking technologies. Bead artists in the coastal and southern regions of modern Ghana created their own distinctive mold-form powder-glass beadmaking processes from widely shared knowledge of drawn powder-glass bead technologies of West Africa’s interregional and trans-Saharan trade centers, in much the same way that the distinctive Ewe and Asante kente traditions developed with the spread of West African strip-weaving technologies. With the beginnings of European maritime trade in the late fifteenth century, an increasing volume of glass beads and glass goods were shipped to trade centers along present-day Ghana’s Gold Coast,1 stimulating the growth of local beadworking and powder-glass beadmaking industries. The flourishing coastal trade achieved a more direct engagement between European merchants and trading communities than had been possible with the trans-Saharan trade, and enhanced European abilities to ascertain and respond to local West African consumer preferences. This interactive trade environment also facilitated the impact of the demands of Gold Coast consumers on European product design and production, a two-way dynamic similar to the trade in African-print textiles (Nielsen 1979; Steiner 1985). In the Gold Coast bead trade, such interactions went beyond a simple paradigm of African consumers and European producers and led to the development of an ongoing transcultural dialogue between Gold Coast and European bead artists that was mutually influential on West African and European bead design. The dialogic nature of this artisanal relationship becomes especially clear in examining practices of cross-cultural imitation, in which Gold Coast artists developed local powder-glass versions of European trade bead designs, and European beadmakers developed their own facsimiles of popular West African bead forms. In late twentieth and early twenty-first century Ghana, new forms of engagement with the wider world are driving profound changes in Ghanaian glass bead production and marketing. Innovations in the form of new “translucent” and painted glass beads and beadmaking techniques, which have largely replaced long-standing mold-formed powder-glass design processes, have been spurred on by contemporary beadmakers’ creativity and initiative in cultivating new local and international markets.

African transnational threat to Turkey

Africa has emerged as a strategic location for transcontinental narcotics trade. Particularly the West African subcontinent has turned into a cocaine warehousing and trans-shipment hub along the way to the European underground markets. At this juncture, African drug networks (ADNs) began to play a momentous role in global drug trade, and pose a considerable threat to international security, as they operate in more than 80 countries. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Interpol, and Europol perceive ADNs as one of the primary issues in international counter-narcotics policy. These agencies have launched several multilateral initiatives to contain the West African threat. None of these initiatives, however, retarded the expansion of the problem. Indeed, the containment efforts turned out to be quite embryonic. The ADNs eventually entered the Turkish market by the early 2000s. West African drug networks (WADNs) in particular have begun to operate within Turkey extensively, often supplying and distributing drugs. The gravity of the threat became ever more serious by 2012. The upsurge of the new threat has compelled the Turkish drug-law enforcement agencies to adopt new policies and counter-strategies. These policies have to be based upon proper strategic analysis of the threat. This paper seeks to address the need for a threat assessment of ADNs. It investigates the dimensions of the problem, profiles the members of WADNs, their modes of operation, and the factors that compelled them to exploit the illicit Turkish drug markets. The analyses are based upon the scrutiny of 227 narcotic interdictions files and statements from the African individuals in these case files. The paper concludes by presenting policy implications and recommendations for the Turkish security and foreign-policy institutions to cope with this impending threat.

Smiths Falls in the World: A Study of Globalization in a Rural Canadian Town

In early February, 2007, Hershey’s Chocolate Company announced its global supply-chain transformation plan to cut more than 1500 jobs from its Canadian and United States plants. Smiths Falls, the Chocolate Capital of Canada, lost its Hershey factory together with the closure of the Rideau Regional Centre, an institution for people with developmental disabilities. By the end of 2008, this Eastern Ontario town of roughly 9,000 people shed roughly 1700 jobs, constituting almost 40% of its active labour force (Sutton, 2009). Globalization, despite the confusion generated by the word, must be considered a core factor in the economic and social situation. Smiths Falls confronts these lay-offs from a position of economic and social strain already. The paper examines the broader changes in the world occurring through globalization and how the local society of Smiths Falls has adjusted in tandem. Such an analysis has likely been relevant to Smiths Falls since its inception; as a meeting point of transcontinental trade and a centre of manufacturing within an ever-expanding and more complex supply chain.

Smiths Falls in the World: A Study of Globalization in a Rural Canadian Town

In early February, 2007, Hershey’s Chocolate Company announced its global supply-chain transformation plan that would cut more than 1500 jobs from its plants in Canada and the United States. Smiths Falls, the Chocolate Capital of Canada, is losing its Hershey factory this year together with the closure of the Rideau Regional Centre. This Eastern Ontario town of roughly 10,000 people is facing the loss of over 1500 jobs, constituting nearly 40% of its labour force. Globalization, despite the confusion generated by the word, must be considered as a core factor in the economic and social situation. Smiths Falls confronts these lay-offs from a position of economic and social strain already. The paper will examine the broader changes in the world occurring through globalization and how the local society of Smiths Falls has adjusted in tandem. Such an analysis has likely been relevant to Smiths Falls since its inception; as a meeting point of transcontinental trade and a centre of manufacturing within an ever-expanding and more complex supply chain.

The Low Countries' Export Trade in Textiles with the Mediterranean Basin, 1200–1600: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Comparative Advantages in Overland and Maritime Trade Routes

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom in European economic history that long-distance maritime transport was always more cost-effective than overland trade routes. Thus the majority of historians in the past century have attributed the rapid decline of the medieval Champagne Fairs, governing the textile trades between the Low Countries, northern France, and Italy, to the establishment of an effective and ‘permanent’ direct sea-route between Italy and north-west Europe from the early 14th century (though the first, a Genoese galley, can be dated to 1277). In my paper, I contend that a spreading stain of chronic, continuous warfare throughout western Europe and the Mediterranean basin from the 1290s, leading into the Hundred Years’ War (1336-1453), with a consequent sharp rise in transport and transaction costs in international trade, was instead the major factor in the decline of the Champagne Fairs, in the concomitant decline of the overland continental trade routes associated with them, and with a forced shift to the maritime trading routes between Italy and north-west Europe. During this war-torn, plague-disrupted period of economic contraction, up to the 1450s, the costs of shipping luxury woollens by the maritime route was certainly cheaper than by overland routes; but the relative cost of the maritime route was still higher than the cost of transporting cheap textiles (says) overland in the late 13th century. Indeed, this steep rise in late-medieval transaction costs in international trade had forced the north-western European textile industries to give up the export of the very cheap, light textiles and focus instead on luxury woollens that could better ‘bear the freight’. Subsequently, however, from the 1450s, with the establishment of alternative, more easterly overland routes in areas free from warfare, principally via the Rhine, then with the restoration of relative peace after the end of the Hundred Years’ War, and with the South German silver-copper mining boom, the overland continental trade routes rapidly revived, and with them a series of newer continental-trade based fairs (Antwerp, Frankfurt, Geneva, Lyons). During the later 15th and 16th centuries, these continental trade routes and their associated fair-system were virtually the sole mechanism by which textiles from north-west Europe were exported to Italy and the Mediterranean basin, because, inter alia, the overland distance from the Antwerp Fairs to Venice was only about 20% of the distance by the often hazardous sea routes. The principal textiles involved in this overland, trans-continental trade were : luxury-quality English woollens, medium-quality kerseys, and especially the very cheap, light Flemish says from the revived sayetteries, which had become the principal textile industry of the southern Low Countries. The paper concludes by examining the various factors and forces that led to a fall in transport and transaction costs in the international textile trades, via the overland routes, including river routes, between north-west Europe and the Mediterranean basin from the later 15th to early 17th centuries (i.e. to the eve of the Thirty Years War, which again seriously disrupted the overland, continental routes).

The Great Yellow Fleet: A History of American Railroad Refrigerator Cars by John H. White

312 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE 1901—1985 is an intriguing and informative account of how a major western railroad faced a variety of economic developments in the present century. John F. Stover Dr. Stover is retired from the Department of History at Purdue University. He is the author of nine volumes on American railroad and transportation history, including American Railroads (1961), History of the Illinois Central Railroad (1975), Iron Road to the West: American Railroad in the 1850s (1978), and History of the Baltimore Ohio Railroad (1987). The Great Yellow Fleet: A History of American Railroad Refrigerator Cars. By John H. White. San Marino, Calif.: Golden West Books, 1986. Pp. 186; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $44.95 + $1.50 handling. Earlier works by noted Smithsonian historian John White have in­ cluded American Locomotives and The American Railroad Passenger Car. His latest book is a history of refrigerated rail cars in America. After offering a general overview of the subject, White moves back to discuss development of the railroad refrigerator car during the second half of the 19th century. With few exceptions, early refrigerator cars were thinly insulated boxcars equipped with bunkers of ice for cooling. Initially, the relationship between railroads and refrigerator cars was an uneasy one. During the 1860s and 1870s, the railroads were un­ willing to haul refrigerated sides of beef from the midwestern slaugh­ terhouses. A shift away from livestock shipments threatened to lower tonnages and diminish revenues. Even as national meat-packers like Armour and Swift became firmly established and a transcontinental trade in California produce emerged, many railroads remained re­ luctant to invest in the rolling iceboxes. As a result, in 1900 most such cars were owned either by meat-packers or private freight car lines. White’s post-1900 focus is on outside pressures for technical improve­ ments and the conservatism of freight car companies and the rail­ roads. Simple changes such as heavier insulation and better internal air circulation took decades to implement. As late as 1940, wooden­ bodied refrigerator cars were the norm. The book concludes with case studies of the private car lines that hauled so much of the nation’s chilled freight. Although they are never explicitly stated, the book contains two underlying points. First, White argues the importance of continuity in this technology, pointing out that the car’s basic design changed little between the 1850s and the 1930s. For nearly a century, refrig­ erator cars underwent only small incremental improvements. This is a nice observation and well documented, but it cannot carry the story. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 313 However, it does lead to the second theme. White suggests that the slow rate of technological innovation was compounded by the con­ servatism of the railroads and freight car companies. The unstated question is how long-haul truckers wrested control of the refrigerated transport business. The implication is that more aggressive behavior and a sharper eye toward innovation could have staved off the truck­ ers. Human behavior, not technical limitations, spelled the demise of this technology. How accurate is this view? Although the human factor is important, I remain unconvinced that earlier adoption of betterinsulated cars and mechanical refrigeration would have done much to change the story. With development of the interstate highway sys­ tem, the speed and flexibility of refrigerated trucks became the critical consideration in shipping many perishable fruits and vegetables. The scores of photographs and diagrams, as well as descriptions of exterior paint colors, reveal that this is a book intended for railroad enthusiasts. Historians may find points of interest, but they will have to do some sifting. For example, a study of White’s blueprints will provide a good sense of how the cars operated. In another case, there is a remarkable series of photographs which document the mass icing of refrigerator cars and communicate more about refrigerated trans­ port than any ten pages of text. While these features can be a pleasure, their volume can easily prove frustrating. In general, the book would have benefited from a sharper sense of purpose and a stronger story line. Moreover, many important issues remain below the surface. There is little to suggest the ways in...