Frank Broeze

Mastering Risk: Environment, Markets and Politics in Australian Economic History.

This work interprets Australias economic experience as a process of mastering a constantly changing risk environment. It begins by focusing on the aboriginal experience and progresses through to current attitudes, institutions, and patterns of development--showing how they have been shaped by Australias risk environment.

Underdevelopment and Dependency: Maritime India during the Raj

An extensive body of literature has grown up in recent years devoted to the analysis of the causes of what is certainly the most pressing economic issue of our time: the unequal distribution of the worlds wealth and income, and in particular what in shorthand may be called ‘the underdevelopment of the Third World’. Tremendous progress has been made by radical as well as more conventional social scientists, and our understanding of the processes of interaction, economic as well as otherwise, between the metropolitan core of western colonial powers and indigenous societies in the periphery has benefited commensurately. Naturally, the debate has tended to focus on the major sectorsinvolved in the processes of economic growth and modernization, agriculture and industry, with infrastructure a poor third. Nevertheless, it is somewhat surprising to observe that what to many students ofEuropean expansion has appeared to constitute the essential element intheir ability to explore, gain access to, and exploit the periphery, hasbeen completely neglected: ocean transport, or to put it differently, themain body of the infrastructure of the world economy. In some ways, no dependence is felt to be so absolute as that of the country that sees itscoastal traffic dominated and its exports carried by foreign-owned ships.

SHIPPING POLICY AND SOCIAL-DARWINISM: ALBERT BALLIN AND THE WELTPOLITIK OF THE HAMBURG-AMERICA LINE 1886–1914

We saw ourselves compelled to give notice of termination [of the Atlantic Conference], as the existing agreements did not sufficiently take into account the natural growth of our enterprise……

Albert Ballin, The Hamburg-Bremen Rivalry and the Dynamics of the Conference System

Albert Ballin (1857-1918) was one of the most prominent entrepreneurs during the exciting quarter-century of growth and dramatic transformation in the world economy prior to the outbreak of World War I. Under his leadership the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt AG. (Hamburg-America Line, henceforth HAL) became even before the turn of the twentieth century the biggest company not only in Wilhelmine Germany but also in the world. With a total capital of 260 million marks (of which equity shares accounted for 180 million and debenture stock for the remaining eighty million; together the equivalent of some £13 million) and a fleet of over 1.3 million GRT in service and under construction, by 1914 HAL had far outdistanced its main German rival, Norddeutscher Lloyd (North German Lloyd or just Lloyd), as well as all leading British and foreign companies. HAL thus epitomised the growth and concentration which were the main characteristics of this imperialist and social-Darwinist era of modern capitalism. As in industry and finance, ever larger steamship companies operated on the worlds oceans; by 1914 ten operated fleets of over four hundred thousand GRT.2 Moreover, on most trade routes

Maritime Australia: Integrating the Sea into our National History

This is the edited text of a lecture given in Fremantle to the History Teachers Association of Australia. It points out how vital the sea has been to the development of Australian culture and shows how interest in our maritime history is growing after many years of neglect.

Book Review: Crossing the Tracks of Columbus. German Liner Shipping to Latin America, the Caribbean and the West Coast of North America down the YearsJ. SeilerOtto. Crossing the Tracks of Columbus. German Liner Shipping to Latin America, the Caribbean and the West Coast of North America down the Years. Herford: Verlag E.S. Mittler und Sohn GmbH, 1992. 266 pp., notes, bibliography, illustrations, index. ISBN-3-8132-0405-7.

during the 1910s and finally given up in the early 1920s, also an attempt to modernise the facility with cranes and electricity? Both these problems are closely related to a central theme of the book: the struggle for survival in the interwar years. The authors concentration on the lack of support from the local authorities and the state seems a bit myopic, especially in repeating uncritically the contemporary argument that Liibeck could only support one shipyard (pp. 86, 88, 92). It can easily be seen from the biographies, however, that Kochs early market was not limited to the proximate vicinity. In the discussion of the yards closure, it would also have been useful to have had a discussion of its relationship to the cartelization of German shipbuilding. This feature of the interwar period is hinted at on several occasions (eg., pp. 61, 78, 83 ff.), but its importance in the case of Henry Koch is mostly ignored. Moreover, I would have found the interesting ship biographies even more valuable had they provided evidence about the yards selling price. This information would have been useful in a variety of ways to both maritime and economic historians. Notwithstanding my critical remarks, it is still clear that Heinz Haaker has produced an enjoyable and helpful book. Perhaps the author will find a way to address some of the more general problems in a forthcoming volume on shipbuilding in Liibeck promised in the preface.

Naval History in Universities

In the following I shall, above all, be addressing the question of the academic teaching of naval history. Research, including that at the postgraduate and postdoctoral level, is such a personal affair that one can say little of general use or applicability on that subject apart from making the observation that the introduction of naval history, in one form or another, can only lead to greater awareness of the subject and, in consequence, a greater potential for attracting research interest and projects.

Book Review: Zeevarenden op de koopvaardijvloot omstreeks 1700

attractions. It is true that the campaign was indecisive, and that neither side inflicted defeat upon the other. It is not unreasonable to claim that the disaster swept away outmoded Spanish approaches to maritime warfare and in consequence marked a rebirth, and not the extinction, of Spanish seapower. But it is perhaps pushing the argument too far to suggest, as FernandezArmestodoes, that the Armadas arrival in the Channel was, by demonstrating the reach of Spanish amphibious forces, in itself a victory. Be that as it may, the main strength of this book lies in its well supported conclusion--that the muddle and misery of the conflict was common to both sides. Dr. FernandezArmestos Armada is less important, but no less interesting, than the traditional version. He is probably right. Dr. Whiting, on the other hand, remains very much a traditionalist. His account, in spite of its claim to have incorporated recent research, is not much more than a spirited retelling of the old tale, with a chapter tacked on at the end to summarise some of the findings from the wrecks. Many of the old chestnuts have survived. Corbetts ingenious but erroneous re-creation of the fleet formation, first published in 1898 and given further weight by Lewis in 1960, is given another airing (p. 103). Yet Duro had published information in 1884 which shows categorically that the Armada was not arrayed in its wellknown territorial groupings (which were administrative formations only), but marshalled without regard to squadron by edict from the flagship. This is more than a mere point of detail, for analytical narratives of the fighting from Corbettonwards seek to accommodate the presumed formation structure with thefragmentary and often ambiguous eyewitness accounts. The danger is that these flawed interpretations become imbued, through time, with a kind of traditional authenticity. A critical study of the Armadas historiography is long overdue. Like so many of the 1988 offerings, Dr. Whitings book is eminently readable,adequately illustrated, and written with an obvious enthusiasm for the subject. But at its core it lacks the fresh substance necessary to revitalise a topic which has become hackneyed with too much repetition.