Transport as a causal
factor in history
A
case study in new philosophy of history
revised
10/13/02
1 Transportation
Innovations in transportation
have had massive consequences in history.
The development of a railroad network linking the western and eastern
parts of North America created Chicago as a metropolis; mechanized warfare gave
Germany decisive advantages in the early years of World War II; and the coming
of steamboats to the Yangtze River pushed the process of economic integration
in late imperial China. What can
we learn about large-scale historical causation from study of
transportation? This paper
examines several important cases of historical change involving new
transportation systems. It then
considers several important questions: Do transportation systems have specific
causal properties that are robust across a variety of social settings? What are the mechanisms that underlie
these causal properties? Can the
study of transportation shed light on important large-scale historical events or
processes? It will be argued that
transportation systems stand in an intermediate position within a scheme of
“microfoundations” for causal explanations in history: reference to the
specifics of the transportation system can serve as a microfoundation for a
higher-level causal claim, and it is also desirable to provide a more refined
microfoundational account of various of the system characteristics of a given
implementation of a transportation technology.
2 What is the
“new” philosophy of history?
This paper, like the several upon which it
builds, falls within what I would like to call a “new philosophy of
history.” Why do we need a new
philosophy of history? Because the
subject is intellectually important, and because philosophy has made very
little progress in this field in decades.
The approach that I am taking in this body of work asks abstract
questions about historical processes and historical knowledge, but it does not
derive from the research traditions of the traditional philosophy of history. Instead, it takes its inspiration from
the philosophy of science. I take
the view that historians are attempting to provide rationally justified
knowledge about the past. They are
interested in identifying “significant” historical events or outcomes (e.g. the
French Revolution, the outbreak of the American Civil War, the collapse of the
Qing Empire); giving realistic descriptions of these events; and answering
questions about the causes and effects of these events. The task of the philosophy of history
as I will pursue it is to analyze and assess the practice of outstanding
historians in order to uncover the assumptions they make about the goals of
historical inquiry, the ways in which evidence, theory, and inference can lead
to discoveries within historical disciplines; and to identify some of the
conceptual and methodological difficulties that arise in the practice of
historical investigation.
My
guiding intuition is that historians implicitly define the rationality and
objectivity of the discipline of historical knowledge; and philosophers can
elucidate (and criticize) that ensemble of assumptions about historical inquiry
and knowledge in a way that illuminates both the nature of historical knowledge
and the ways in which current approaches may be flawed or partial. In other words, the philosophy of
history can function as a conceptual enhancement for working historians, and it
can function as a source of rational criticism of specific methods or approaches
within contemporary historiography.
So we can learn a great deal about the conceptual and epistemic features
of good historical explanation by giving close attention to these powerful
innovative examples of current historiography.
3 Conjunctural
contingent meso-history
There
is a body of work in history and historical sociology in which it is possible
to identify the strands of a new paradigm of historical inquiry—what
might be called “meso-history.”
This work provides examples of strong, innovative macro-explanations
that give more compelling and nuanced expression to this approach to
historiography than past macro-history. I characterize this paradigm as “conjunctural
contingent meso-history” (CCM), and I argue that this approach allows for a
middle way between grand theory and excessively particularistic narrative
. The paradigm recognizes
historical contingency—at any given juncture there are multiple outcomes
that might have occurred. It recognizes
the role of agency—leaders, inventors, engineers, activists, and
philosophers are able to influence the course of development in particular
historical contexts. It recognizes the multiplicity of causes that are at work
in almost all historical settings—thereby avoiding the mono-causal
assumptions of much previous macro-history. And it recognizes, finally, that there are discernible
structures, processes, and constraints that recur in various historical
settings and that play a causal role in the direction and pace of change. It is therefore an important part of
the historian’s task to identify these structures and trace out the ways in
which they constrain and motivate individuals in particular settings, leading
to outcomes that can be explained as contingent results of conjunctural
historical settings. This approach recognizes an important role for social
theory within the historian’s practice, while at the same time emphasizing that
the notion of historical inquiry as no more than applied social theory is one
that trivializes the problems of explanation and interpretation that confront
the working historian.
4 Why
transportation?
This
essay is a case study. It is an
effort to get traction on the question—what is the role of large-scale
factors in historical change? A
large-scale factor is a factor that is pervasive, that recurs across historical
settings, and that arguably exerts strong influence on historical
processes. Examples include such
things as climate, population, technology, natural resources, or disease. All these are plainly of interest in
explaining large historical events or outcomes. They exercise their influence in ways that are sometimes
perfectly visible and sometimes hidden.
And it is important for historians to have a reasonably clear
understanding of the ways in which such factors come into historical accounts,
and the ways in which we can treat them rigorously.[1]
This
research constitutes a case study, because I proceed by singling out a single
interesting candidate as a “large historical factor”—the factor of
transportation—and then examine some specific historical explanations
where this factor is invoked as an important part of the explanation of an
outcome. The factor then becomes
part of the answer to the question, to what extent is there historical
necessity at work in certain historical developments? So study of transportation as a large historical factor can
illuminate the logic of reference to such factors more generally. It can also alert us to some of the
conceptual difficulties and challenges that arise when we use large historical
factors as a ground for historical explanation. And it can challenge us to attempt to supply greater rigor
in constructing explanations that invoke such factors. (Thus the formal modeling provided in
economic geography and central place theory is analogous to the effort to introduce
the tools of neo-classical economics into economic history.)
The
CCM theory (described above) emphasizes the structuring role of intermediate
factors (of which transport is a good example) and the importance of
contingency—e.g. policy choices made at a specific point in time that
structure future developments.
Transportation technology and systems appear to offer important examples
of both points: that transportation represents a causal factor that influences
social developments in very similar ways across many social and historical
settings; and that there are crucial contingencies that influence the unfolding
of a given transport system (Chicago rather than St. Louis, steam traction
rather than electric motors, a rail network designed for military needs for
mobilization rather than efficient economic activity throughout the
country). Finally, transportation
represents a factor, unlike climate, in which there is an internal process of
development that can be studied using the methods of the history of technology,
the history of business organization, and the tools of the new
institutionalism. Transportation
has its own internal history that can be analyzed and theorized with profit. And careful study will demonstrate that
there are important structural and institutional differences in the way in
which transportation technologies are implemented that themselves have
important historical consequences across contexts. (For example, consider Perrow’s discussion of the
differences in the state and regulatory contexts in France, England, and the US
in the early implementation of railways; .)
Transportation
stands intermediate between the highest level
constructs—”technology”—and more local constructs—”water
mills in the ancient world”.
Transportation has much to do with technology; but it also has much to
do with social purposes, economic processes, and the interests of powerful
agents in society. We can explore
the imperatives that lead to innovation in transportation technology, as well
as the down-stream effects that important innovations have.
The
idea to be tested is something like this: the system of transportation
available at a given time creates a framework of opportunities and constraints
that have deep causal consequences for historical development. It creates opportunities for
individuals within the context of a specific but evolving set of economic
arrangements and institutions. It
creates the pathways through which people, goods, and ideas flow within and
across societies—and these movements themselves have consequences. The system of transportation
facilitates a certain kind and intensity of military power. It creates the feasibility of a certain
kind and intensity of state-society relations (e.g. fiscal and police
powers). It is possible to provide
an abstract framework in terms of which to analyze transportation systems. And the implications that come along
with this abstract framework may facilitate our understanding of phenomena that
seem distant from transportation.
(For example, the travel of revolutionary ideas and the pattern of
mobilization in the Canton Delta; .)
A
detailed examination of the role of transportation in history can thus help us
towards greater clarity on the topic of the role of large factors in history
more generally. How can we analyze
such factors? In what senses do
they recur across historical settings?
Can we offer predictive theories, grounded in the social sciences, that
can be applied to cases? Does the
factor of transportation shed light as well on the nature of differentiation
that we find among broadly similar processes?
This
investigation is by no means fated for success. It would be possible for us to conclude, for example, that
transportation is of course an important historical factor; but it is a trivial
factor, in that we can easily summarize the mechanisms through which
transportation filters or constrains historical developments. Or we might conclude that the category
of transportation is too broad to provide analytical bite, in that it ranges
from human load-carriers to jumbo jets.
But I will maintain that many of the discoveries we can reach by
considering transportation and transportation systems are non-obvious and
non-trivial. The study of
transportation therefore provides a very concrete instance of a kind of social
explanation that is, according to me, ubiquitous: the establishment of a set of
opportunities and constraints that shape the choices that actors take, leading
to outcomes that would otherwise not have occurred. Moreover, by examining transportation systems and their
evolution carefully, we can discern the role that powerful agents (e.g. the
state) play in the adoption of new transport technologies and the
infrastructures that they require (for example, the grain trade in Imperial
China and the water infrastructure of pre-modern China, or the extension of the
rail system in 19th century United States).
Large questions to answer
My
thesis is that transport is a general and cross-setting historical factor; it
has a characteristic logic that can be rigorously investigated; that it creates
specific and important constraints and opportunities for social actors; and
that it leads to predictable and sometimes surprising historical outcomes.
Here
are some of the questions that I find interesting about transportation:
• How does the
development of transport affect history—political power, state intensity
and pervasiveness, settlement and urbanization, economic integration?
• Does consideration of
the logic of transport and innovation provide a theoretical or analytical basis
for predicting outcomes as a result of a given type of transport system or a
given kind of innovation?
• What drives the
development of transport systems?
• What is the importance
of the “system” side of the issue? Are there
interesting system properties that have historical consequences/effects?
• Are there useful
generalizations about transport in history (analogous to “hunger in history”,
population, war, environment, technology)?
• Are there useful differentiations
to make in different settings—where transport has had significantly
different pattern of development or different effects (e.g. Skinner on cities,
or Hughes on different technological “styles”)?
• How did innovations in
transport affect specific moments in history?
• What implications did
uneven adoption have—e.g. in economic and urban development?
5 Cases
Let us consider several
examples that give a preliminary idea of how transport can function as a broad
historical factor. Many examples appear
relevant; for example, blitzkrieg warfare in WWII, the social and geographical
implications of the Roman road system, the economics of horse hauling in early
modern Europe , the impact of telegraphy on diplomacy in the 19th century . I will focus on four examples from the
past two centuries.
Rail and war: the
Franco-Prussian War
Michael Howard argues that the development of
railroads created a powerful new form of military advantage in Europe in the
mid-nineteenth century. A rail
system gave a military power a great advantage in speed of concentration of
forces—an advantage that was particularly significant for German states
in the nineteenth century. Troops
would arrive at the battlefield in better condition than their marching
competitors. And, most
significantly, the vast challenge of supplying an army in the field was greatly
facilitated by the presence of an effective and well-administered rail
system. However, a rail system is
not simply a collection of track, locomotives, and rail cars; it is an
organized social system with intricate logistics, infrastructure, and
planning. Howard takes the view
that an important determinant of the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War was the
administrative superiority of the Prussians over the French in the management,
planning, and deployment of their rail resources. The French rail system was forced into sudden disarray by
the attempt to rapidly mobilize a large civilian army. Troops and their equipment were
separated, often forever.
Mountains of matériel were to accumulate in depots without adequate
logistical planning for how to deliver these weapons, ammunition, uniforms, and
food to the field. There were
sufficient war materials to support an army of adequate size; instead, “it was
the chaos of the French mobilisation” that led to the disastrous failure of
1870 . On Howard’s account, then,
the failure of the rail system is a very important cause of the shocking
collapse of the French military during the Franco-Prussian war.
The street car and the settlement
of Boston
The settlement patterns of
suburban Boston in the early twentieth century depended crucially on the pace
and geographical location of the extension of the street car system from
downtown Boston into the less developed environs . Prior to the extension of the trolley line into Roxbury,
Newton, and other Boston suburbs, these areas were home to the affluent and
powerful of Boston who could afford to maintain a horse and buggy for
transportation. Once the trolley
reached these areas, however, it was possible for working families to choose to
live in these suburbs and travel to work in Boston by trolley. This created demand for a new kind of
housing—smaller, cheaper, and more densely packed. This increase in population density in
turn triggered the emergence of a new set of businesses in these
areas—green grocers and other suppliers of daily necessities. Warner puts the point this way:
At any given time the
arrangements of streets and buildings in a large city represents a temporary
compromise among such diverse and often conflicting elements as aspirations for
business and home life, the conditions of trade, the supply of labor, and the
ability to remake what came before” (Warner 1962:15)
Chicago
William
Cronon’s work provides a fascinating analysis of the development of the
metropolis of Chicago. The central
causal mechanisms in this instance are the market demand created by rising
population in the Northeastern United States (Boston and New York), and
Chicago’s favorable location for rail and water transport to points east. Concentrated urban demand causes
development of infrastructure and flow of timber and grain. Residents in the urban eastern United
States need food, so rising population creates rising demand for grain. Rising demand gives economic incentive
to distant producers to increase production. And it gives economic incentives to commercial agents to
organize infrastructure (warehouses, railyards, grain elevators, exchanges) that
permit efficient and large-scale trade in grain. Goods need to be transported from the point of production to
the point of consumption—thereby creating an economic incentive for
transport providers to establish transportation infrastructure (railroads,
terminals, rolling stock). Greater
availability of goods transported by effective transportation, in turn,
provides incentive to new residents and traders to choose Chicago over
Peoria—leading in turn to rising population and consequent demand.
It
is worth noting that the processes described here have, in turn, additional
unintended and unexpected consequences.
Dense population causes more frequent public health problems. Effective transportation systems create
constituencies of working class people who can be mobilized to politics and
union activity (e.g. the Pullman strike).
More intensive inter-regional transportation can have the effect of
spreading disease more rapidly.
Effective communication systems cause the more rapid diffusion of ideas,
innovations, and social movements—which in turn cause changes in
technology, politics, and patterns of consumption.
In analyzing and viewing the
development of great metropolitan regions—the restructuring of economic
activity throughout the region (crops, forestry, manufacturing, the movement
and circulation of people and goods, the proliferation of new and more diverse
and specialized enterprises)—we see a great and powerful process. We see the invention of new
inter-locking business institutions and practices; new patterns of consumption;
and new secondary technologies that fill the niches created by the new regional
flows.
Transport plays a key role in
these patterns of regional development.
But is it an instigating cause; an important explanatory variable; or a
predictable and obvious necessary condition (and therefore not of special
explanatory interest)? We might
say that it is the economic causes—population, demand, and
markets—that elicit the innovations and adoptions of the new technology
and that transport is simply an intervening variable. It seems clear from Cronon’s account that rail transport
played a somewhat autonomous causal role in the process. If the investments had not been made in
Chicago’s rail infrastructure; if siting decisions had been made differently
crossing the mid-west; and if supporting innovations (futures grain markets,
grain elevators) had not been forthcoming, then Chicago’s economic and social
development would have been very different.
We can also ask the question
of contingency in the Chicago story.
How much path-dependency do we find in this story? Was it the circumstances of the
location of the terminus and the initial structure of the network that led to
the development of the metropolis?
Or were the circumstances of pre-existing water transport (Great Lakes),
along with geography linking east and west, sufficient to select Chicago over
other possible hubs?
Water transport in China
Water
transport was a crucial factor in China’s economic and spatial development. Many parts of China were very richly provided with
networks of rivers; these were supplemented by canals to provide low-cost
transport throughout relatively large spaces. And China’s major rivers provided the possibility of
long-distance commerce based on low-cost river transport. Water transport, according to G.
William Skinner, set the structure within which “macro-regional” economies
emerged; and the social transactions and behavior of people throughout China
were very much structured by these economic networks. The role of transport in late Imperial China was thus of
great importance for the development of the size and spatial distribution of
population, the reach of the state, and the ability of the state to maintain
social order. The grain trade
provided for more intensive population development, the movement of troops
helped to secure public order, and the movement of officials and messengers was
essential to the imperial state’s ability to impose its will on the
periphery.
Skinner’s
insights have generated a very fertile program of research for the China
field. His own analysis of the
marketing hierarchies of pre-modern China sets the social context for much of
the subsequent study that scholars have provided for subjects as diverse as urbanization,
religion, and rebellion.
Winston
Hsieh provides an interesting
example of how these factors come together in explanation of an important
historical episode—the rapid and patterned diffusion of rebellion in the
Canton Delta in 1911. His
narrative depends on transport in several important ways. The population density of the lower
Canton Delta was made possible by the availability of low cost bulk transport
through the water network of the delta. This permitted farmers to specialize in export rice; commercialization
proceeded intensely, and the population density of the region rose sharply
. Another important effect
occurred in the small city of Shih-Ch’i; its western districts grew rapidly in
urban intensity in the final decades of the 19th century, while the other parts
of the city declined. Hsieh
attributes this pattern of growth to the importance of ferry and steam shipping
on the Shih-ch’i Sea (129). But
the income created by low-cost transport was challenged by another
transportation innovation—the establishment of the Canton-Kowloon
railroad in 1906, which allowed rice merchants to bring Thai rice directly into
competition with the rice harvest of the lower Canton delta.
Hsieh argues that transport
and marketing hierarchies provide critical explanatory variables for the timing
and pattern of mobilization of Republican rebellion in the Canton Delta in
1911. Transport constituted a
longstanding structural variable that created population density and population
interests that were vulnerable to crisis—and therefore provided a
population ready to be mobilized when crisis hit. And the marketing routes that had been established through
local markets also provided the networks through which agents of
mobilization—sectarians, martial arts instructors,
millenarianists—would travel and mobilize.
6 Transportation
and social change
These cases illustrate some
plausible and complex instances where the features of the transport system have
given rise to causal processes that exert large influence on subsequent
historical developments. I take the
position that transport is a relatively autonomous factor in large historical
change. At one level this is a
truism, and the effects and mechanisms of the role of transport are almost too
obvious to comment on. But at
another level, a more refined analysis of transport systems and the
interlocking institutions they require provides non-trivial insight into
historical processes and events.
Transportation has deep effects on social development, including the
pattern and pace of the extension of settlement, the course of economic
development (by enlarging regional and national markets and lowering costs of
delivery), and facilitating the flow of ideas, bodies of knowledge, and
innovations. Let us turn, then, to some of the factors and mechanisms through which
transport influences history.
Important social effects of
transport
We
can attempt to categorize the effects of transport by exploring likely effects
flowing from the transport of goods, people, and ideas.
The
flow of goods that is effected by a transport system leads to market expansion
(increasing availability of goods over a larger region), market integration
(price correlations across space), greater commercialization (more production
for the market as a result of broader and more predictable markets for goods),
broader patterns of consumption, and diffusion of technology (as new potential
users are exposed to new products, tools, and processes).
Easier
movement of people creates equally important and equally visible effects. Long distance migration depends on
transportation; symmetrically, an increase in transport efficiency and
convenience will predictably increase the volume of migration. At the more local scale (inter-village,
inter-city) improved transport increases the ability of people to seek
employment, goods, and services at greater distance—thereby creating the
possibility of ring settlements around higher-level places. Improved efficiency of the movement of
people has important effects on the state and other dispersed organizations. if it takes the representative of the
Emperor 14 days to travel from Beijing to Hankow, the ability of the Emperor to
control events is clearly limited.
When rail travel shortens this trip to 2 days, the administrative grasp
of the state is enhanced. And if
it takes a week to move reliable troops into position in defense against
rebels, clearly the state's ability to control rebellion is weak.
The
movement of ideas that is facilitated by more effective transport is equally
important. The movement of ideas
depends on the movement of people and goods, but the effects are important and
independent. The circuits of White
Lotus teachers and martial arts instructors brought heterodox ideas to many
parts of rural Shandong in the late Qing—with dramatic effects in the
production of millenarian rebellion.
The distribution of newspapers in the west by rail allowed for a form of
national unity that would otherwise have been impossible. The diffusion of new farm machinery and
the cultivation techniques that accompanied depended profoundly on the network
of railroads that crossed the west.
What are the obvious
implications of new transport capabilities? Some of the direct and predictable consequences of
innovation in transportation include: patterns of settlement; extension and
integration of markets; the enhancement of military power and mobilization,
diffusion of people and ideas through a transport network; and the pattern and
nodes of immigration.
Are
there unanticipated and perverse consequences that can emerge as a result of
enhancement of service? Some
traffic specialists have maintained that the third harbor tunnel in Boston will
increase congestion, by giving the public the impression that it will be more
convenient to drive to the airport.
Speeding up the velocity of travel on the tributary roads may lead to
staggering traffic jams on the trunk road—with greater lost time
overall. (The Albuquerque traffic
simulation.) New transportation
options may enhance the spread of crime (the letter from Bonny and Clyde to Mr.
Henry Ford complementing him on the reliable transportation he provided them!).
Characteristics of
transport systems
Let us look briefly at some of
the structural features of transport systems. Transportation systems require traction, vehicles, and
networks. Traction may be animal
(horse, ox, human), or it may be mechanical (steam, internal combustion,
jet). Networks include roads,
railways, ports, and airports—the infrastructure that is necessary to
permit vehicles to move from point to point in space. Transportation systems also require organization, finance,
and communication (see, for example, ).
Trains need to be scheduled, employees need to be trained and
supervised, tracks need to be maintained, and emergencies need to be handled.
A transport system can be
measured in several dimensions: coverage, velocity, capacity, price, and
predictability. The technology of
transport can affect each of these variables; and significant change in the variables
can in turn have major social or economic effects. Likewise, the organization and communication systems that
underlie the transport system can have major effects on the central variables
(e.g. predictability).
Different
modes of transport have significantly different system properties. Rail creates a powerful locational
momentum around its nodes and termini, because of the large capital cost
associated with establishing the rail network and hubs. Air transport is more flexible, since
planes can be re-routed anywhere.
But the economics of airports are likewise spatial; demand density
determines location and profitability.
Note the importance of
appropriate surrounding institutions—financial, banking, letters of
credit, futures contracts, grain evaluation and storage (Cronon’s point about
grain elevators, futures contracts, management systems). It is now a well studied insight in the
history of technology that technologies are not assemblages of machines and
tools;
rather, they are systems that include workers’ and leaders’ knowledge, organizations (internal and
external), consumers, users, …
This point is equally valid in application to transportation systems;
and the social context and social content (i.e. the social institutions within
which transport functions, the political institutions, and the internal
managerial and organizational systems) make a pronounced difference in the
workings, development, and social consequences of transport systems.
Improvement
of transport is in part an area of technological change. But, like any complex technology
system, a transport network is unavoidably institutional, managerial, and
organizational. Innovations in
management, information processing, and finance are as important as “pure”
technology innovations. This is a
place where the seminal insights of Thomas Hughes can be effectively deployed;
his advocacy for looking at technological systems as wholes, his emphasis on
the inter-relatedness of social, managerial, financial, and technical factors;
and his important concepts of technological momentum and “reverse salients” all
shed important light on transportation.
Here, then, are some of the
dimensions of transportation systems that may have major and interesting
historical consequences. First,
there are the material and economic variables associated with the
system--speed, reliability, volume, cost, and coverage. Changes in any of these variables can
have major consequences for population density, commercialization, or military
power. Second, there are a suite
of technological factors associated with the development of transportation as a
technology system—for example, the pace and nature of innovation, the
cadres of experts who are created.
Third, there are important system factors—the character and layout
of the transport network, the logistics of freight and passenger
management. Fourth, there are
important managerial factors—the organizations and systems of training
through which operations are managed, the financial systems that are needed,
the systems through which system safety is assured. And finally, there are social factors—for example, the
ways in which the transport system affects consumers’ preferences and
expectations.
Development of transport
systems
Consider
some of the broad characteristics that can be discerned in the development of a
transport technology and the system in which it is embedded. There are large
breakthroughs that fundamentally transform the dimensions of the transport
system—e.g. steam power replacing wind in maritime transport or rail over
road and animal traction. There
are large economic and financial factors that drive and limit the development
of the technology. There is
opportunistic refinement over a long time, as the devices, power systems, and
control systems are refined. (In
other words, each large transport technology has its own history of technology
within a social and economic setting.)
There are the regional or national variations that can be discerned,
even within the development of a single transport scheme (the railroad, for example;
). These differences parallel
those identified by Hughes in his account of electric power systems. There are important examples of path
dependence, stalled development, and blind alleys: developments that acquire
their own momentum but that block the emergence of other and perhaps better
systems.
The development of
transportation is relatively contingent because its emergence and the
particular features of its underlying assemblages of technologies and
institutions themselves emerge though contingent processes. So the development of a particular
system of transport is a contingent process of innovation and refinement, and
the consequences of the establishment of the transport system are sometimes
unexpected and radical.
It is useful to speak of a push
and pull of transport development.
The pull is the financial incentives created for investors and
entrepreneurs by a new technology.
The push is the community of engineers and innovators who have conceived
of the new transport system possibilities.
How
do circumstances—market forces, military considerations, policy
choices—affect and channel the development of the transport
technology? Factors that induce
development within a system of transport include especially government policy,
market demand, and investor interests.
Governments can do much to push transport development faster, or in
different directions. And market
demand can provide strong incentives towards either incremental or step-wise
growth—more river boats providing greater grain transport capacity, or
significant increase in rail coverage providing new access to regions and
markets.
It
is important to take note of the fact that transportation often requires that
large investment decisions must be made; these are contested; and they make a
large difference in the course of future development. These decisions create institutional momentum for one system
or technology over another.
Sometimes the state and its agencies are critical in these decisions,
and sometimes large private players are able to influence or determine policy
outcomes. (Note Slotten’s valuable
treatment of satellite communication decisions in the 1960s .)
Mechanisms of influence
Let
us consider the question of causal influence of transport in historical
settings. How does the transport
system influence social action?
Transportation is particularly important in the view that I offer of
social explanation under the rubric of an “institutional logic” . Individuals make choices, large and small, within the
context of the space of opportunities and powers that are available to
them. And transportation
constitutes one particularly fundamental such source of opportunities and
powers. Transportation is a factor
that creates an institutional logic for the individuals, organizations, and
structures within a society at a specific moment in time, imposing constraints
and creating opportunities for them to achieve their goals. Traders exploit the opportunity to push
further up a river when motorized boats become available, and people choose to
settle in more remote places.
Fishermen push further out into deep ocean when more seaworthy ships
become available . Smugglers take
advantage of the wheel wells of aircraft.
And so forth. Using the
framework of an institutional logic, we can understand the historical dynamics
of a social setting that are created by the transport network along these
lines:
Individuals have a set of
purposes; movement of people and goods influences their ability to achieve
these purposes; individuals will adapt opportunistically to the opportunities
and constraints created by the transport system; and large social patterns
(e.g. patterns of settlement, market integration) emerge as the consequence of
the large number of independent actions and choices made by individuals in the
population.
How does the transport system
affect historical events? It does
so as an institutional logic. It
presents actors with a specific set of opportunities and constraints as they
pursue their plans and purposes.
To the extent that the new option permits the actor to better achieve
his goal, his behavior and choices will change accordingly. This is especially true with regard to
residence, employment, and business activity. But it also extends in the direction of technology
change. We can expect some actors
to look for ways of taking advantage of the new technology—of refining,
perfecting, or extending it. So we
can expect entrepreneurial activity to take place around the implementation of
the system. Likewise, we can
expect agents of the state to seize opportunities of interest in and around the
transport system—e.g. as a powerful tool for military mobilization. The transport system is thus a locus
for individual agency.
These
effects all derive from the purposeful choices of individuals. Equally interesting are the unintended
consequences of a particular direction of transport technology—the
creation of isolated suburban communities, the transport of criminal activity,
the social inertia behind the automobile, the values and lifestyle choices that
emerge as a result of suburbia.
The
cost of transport is one critical variable in determining the effects of a new
transport option. Another is the
spatial organization of the transport system itself. Which destinations are accessible? Where are the nodes at which connections can be made to
other routes or modalities?
The
system properties of a transport network are important to the consequences for
activity. Once the nodes, route,
and terminus of a transport network have been firmly established, it is
predictable that uncoordinated activity (settlement, merchandising, development
of local resources) will begin to crystallize around these points of
convenience. (The “Coming of the
Road” and the destruction of traditional ways.) Seattle and Chicago became great metropoles; Port Townsend
and Milwaukee did not. Paces that
are bypassed by transport (e.g. Worcester, Massachusetts) wither. Other system
properties are significant as well.
How does the system hold up when it is subject to stress (e.g. sharp
jumps in demand, the need to transport men and materiel in time of military
emergency)? how robust are the
logistics of the system? is there
adequate warehouse capacity in the system to handle surges? how robust is the scheduling of
vehicles in face of unexpected delays?
(Can a 10 minute delay in Chicago lead to a 5 hour delay in Los
Angeles?)
7 concluding
observations
Several observations are
justified at this point:
• Transportation is a
plausible instance of a “portable” large factor.
• There is enough
systematicity to transport to permit analysis and prediction.
• Transport provides a
basis for some degree of generalization across historical contexts.
• Transport represents an
instance of significant “contingent and conjunctural” variability across
contexts.
Are there generalizations
about the role of transportation in history? Yes, with appropriate ceteris paribus clauses.
Are there differentiating
observations? Yes, and they are at
least as interesting.
Transportation and its effects are both conjunctural and contingent.
How
do these various thoughts make a contribution to historical research? In several ways. First, they give a clue that there may
be systemic properties in historical data that are simply never noticed until
the question is posed, how has transport structured and constrained these
data? Here the example of G. W.
Skinner's analysis of the central places of Sichuan is deeply instructive. But of even greater interest to the
historian—these insights can resolve anomalies. Hsieh's question is an interesting one—why was there a
peculiar pattern to mobilization in the Canton Delta in 1911? And his answer draws upon Skinner's
analysis of urban hierarchy; he points out that the rebels' activists followed
the same routes as the merchants.
Why is St. Louis noted for German beer and midwestern Hegelianism? Because it was the terminus to
migration routes that were taken up by radicals fleeing repression following
the failed revolutions of 1848.
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References
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[1] For example, how would we answer the questions,
was there a “little ice age” at the end of the middle ages, and how did this
period of climate change affect historical developments in Europe following
this period ?