Technological Change in the British Iron Industry, 1700-1870 by Charles K. HydeReview by: John ButtThe American Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 1006-1007Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1867707 .

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I oo6 Reviews of Books

after i66o, and the heirs of the Cromwellian tradi- tion (a group Earle thinks was important in the rebellion) had seen the hand of God at work in the victories of the 1640S.

Earle deals well with Monmouth's complex per- sonality, pointing out his strengths as well as obvi- ous shortcomings. Monmouth recognized the exis- tence of the resentment against James and took advantage of the situation. Soon after the rebellion started, however, he lost confidence in the ability of his army to win the kind of victory he had foreseen and his irresolution and lack of nerve doomed any chance he had of success.

After we see the new picture of the men who fought at Sedgemoor, we must face the inescapable fact that it was "Monmouth's rebellion," not just another uprising of the enthusiastic, the radical, or the nostalgic. Earle concentrates too much on de- stroying his own interpretation of a "Whig view" that the rebellion failed because it was not led by the right sort of gentlemen. His own conclusion that the rebellion had a chance to succeed, but not much chance of making a success of government, raises a crucial consideration by hinting at the internal contradictions of the rebellion. It is unfor- tunate that this observation appears in the last paragraph of the text and is used as a final salvo at the presumed orthodoxy, rather than as the basis for a new analysis.

CHARLES P. KORR

University of Missouri St. Louis

PATRICK CROWHURST. The Defence of British Trade, i689-i8I5. Folkestone, England: William Dawson and Sons. 1977. Pp. 281. ?8.oo.

Recent interpretations have emphasized the insti- tutional requirements of European economic growth. Overseas trade, for example, could grow in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries only as pirates ceased to be the unwelcome beneficiaries of the traffic. Only more effective enforcement of property rights induced shippers to increase the scale of their ventures on the high seas. Arld the costs of enforcement often determined the institu- tional arrangements: for years the English found it less expensive to pay the bribes demanded by the Barbary pirates than to provide naval escort for merchant traffic in the Mediterranean.

Patrick Crowhurst describes the institutional ar- rangements that brought British merchants more effective protection against pirates and privateers in the eighteenth century. In the opening and most useful chapter of the book he argues that privateers from St. Malo, Bayonne, and Dunkirk posed the most serious threat during this period of inter-

mittent Anglo-French war. To deal with the men- ace the Admiralty began to organize convoys in the 169os, and, according to Crowhurst, improved the effectiveness of this service during the eigh- teenth century. A chapter on insurance sketches the early history of Lloyd's and suggests that mer- chants, insurers, and the Admiralty cooperated in enforcing convoy discipline.

The chapters that deal with specific trade routes fail to develop a convincing argument. Crowhurst offers a general description of the New England economy rather than an assessment of how well naval forces protected trade, perhaps because, as he admits in mid-course, no reliable statistics for shipping losses exist. He attributes the success of the tobacco and sugar trades in part to the provi- sion of convoy escort but once again cannot offer the evidence needed to isolate a causal relation- ship. The final chapter begins with the familiar history of the East India trade and then drifts off into a tedious description of the routes taken by the merchantmen.

Crowhurst offers no conclusions about the effi- ciency of the various defensive measures. He as- sumes that convoys were essential to the prosperity of the merchants but does not estimate the costs which resulted from this technique as sailings were often delayed and markets were regularly glutted. The provision of naval escort might have been in fact an inefficient allocation of resources: large, well-armed East Indiamen could usually defend themselves even in European waters, and it is worth asking if the use of such ships, rather than convoys of smaller vessels, in the tobacco and sugar trades would have been more efficient, charging the consumer instead of the taxpayer with the costs of protection.

To the constant annoyance of the reader, the book is not edited. A map of the Baltic includes none of the place names mentioned in the text. Table 6.2 is mislabeled. "Real value" is confused with "market value." "Commerce" is repeatedly used as an adjective. One must continually supply punctuation and untangle syntax in an attempt to get at the author's intent, and only the most in- trepid reader will be able to keep his sea legs to the end of Crowhurst's voyage.

GEORGE F. STECKLEY

Knox College

CHARLES K. HYDE. Technological Change in the British Iron Industry, I700-I870. Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press. i977. Pp. xvi, 283. $18.50.

In an industrializing economy the capital goods industries play a strategic role, for the general capacity to increase the rate of economic growth is

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Modern Europe 1007

closely linked with their evolution and progress. Even productivity gains made in agriculture and its associated processing industries are, to a great degree, determined by improvements in tools and machinery which, in earlier times, were often made of iron. Charles K. Hyde's study has been eagerly awaited by those who are familiar with his earlier publications in the periodical literature, and there can be no doubt that this book is an important, original, and substantial contribution to our understanding of the development of an important industry during the British economy's drive to industrial maturity. Many earlier schol- ars-Ashton and Birch being two who were brave enough to produce general surveys-have exam- ined particular aspects of the story in exercises often devoured by controversy, but Hyde has pro- duced a new synopsis and, in the course of pre- paring it, has used much primary material pre- viously unexploited. Moreover, the scenario is essentially quantitative with a solid supporting cast of economic theory.

All aspects of the iron industry's development in the period under review have been carefully sur- veyed. The first part of the book is primarily con- cerned with the change from a charcoal-based in- dustry to the era of coke smelting, and the factors behind the changing fortunes of the various iron- producing regions are analyzed with admirable intellectual rigor. The questions asked of the data are important, precisely framed, and scrupulously answered. Capital costs, production costs, prices, and markets receive careful attention, as do vari- ous explanations relating to the diffusion of tech- nology. However, the significance of the regional ironmasters' associations in maintaining the eco- nomic existence of marginal producers might have been examined more closely.

The second part deals with the mature iron in- dustry in the period 1815 to I870, assessing particu- larly the development of the smelting sector and the regional changes consequent upon the adop- tion of the hot-blast process. The latter greatly reduced fuel costs but also favorably affected capi- tal costs and labor productivity, since daily fur- nace output could be substantially increased. However, the continuing expansion of the pig-iron industry is explained without much reference to labor supply or cost. This is perhaps a minor quibble, for the general analysis of the implica- tions of increased output at lower cost is ex- ceedingly good. Moreover, the expansion of the wrought-iron sector is viewed in the proper context of a rapid growth of pig-iron production, a natural but commonly ignored symbiosis. For most British pig iron went to the forge, often in regions different from those that produced it.

Central to the book is the study of the develop-

ment and diffusion of new production techniques. Hyde advances three major conclusions: i.) tech- nical advances, both in the pig-iron and wrought- iron sectors, were relatively slowly diffused; 2.) initial change was followed by continuous refine- ments; and 3.) the application of new production methods was determined by their profitability. His research perhaps makes entrepreneurial behavior appear too logical, but this reviewer would not fault that trend in scholarship. The mercantile side of the story, never adequately treated, was not really Hyde's province; one suspects, however, that he believes (pp. 197-98) that his conclusions might be modified, if only slightly, by further re- search into the operations of the iron market. Dis- tribution, the supply of capital to the producers, and the provision of entrepreneurial skills were often closely linked in merchant partnerships. Changes in these, often accompanied by the poaching of managers and skilled labor from es- tablished iron-working districts, must also have affected the pace of technical change and the diffu- sion of innovation, particularly in the earlier pe- riod. This book will stimulate further discussion and research, and its methodology is a model to those who will follow.

JOHN BUTT

University of Strathclyde

LUCY M. BROWN and IAN R. CHRISTIE, editors. Bibli- ography of British History, I789-I85I. Oxford: Cla- rendon Press. 1977. Pp. xxxi, 759. $44.00.

H. J. HANHAM, editor. Bibliography of British History, I85I-I914. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1976. Pp. xxvii, 1,6o6. $73.50.

The publication of these two bibliographies on British history virtually completes an Anglo- American project that started at the beginning of this century. The entire span of British history from its earliest times to the eve of World War I has been captured in a full series of Oxford Univer- sity Press volumes. Edgar Graves' volume (1975) covers the period to 1485, updating Charles Gross' first work of the series; Conyers Read's volume (Ist ed. 1933, 2d ed. 1959) covers the Tudor period; the Stuart period was compiled by Godfrey Davies in 1928 and revised in a second edition by Mary F. Keeler in 1970; the eighteenth century to 1789 by Stanley Pargellis and D. J. Medley appeared in 1951. The two works under review now join their companion volumes to form one of the most au- thoritative and valuable bibliographical sources in the field of British history.

Both the Brown/Christie and the Hanham vol- umes maintain the excellence of the series. They follow the general format, style, and typography of

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