The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975: A Study in Economic Imperialismby Gervase Clarence-Smith

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The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism by Gervase Clarence-Smith Review by: Martin T. Katzman The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Jun., 1986), pp. 679-680 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869208 . Accessed: 28/06/2014 19:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 92.63.101.193 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:04:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oup http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aha http://www.jstor.org/stable/1869208?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Modern Europe 679 Donald Reid's recent book is a welcome exception. Although his title mentions labor alone, Reid also examines changes in management style, problems of production and technology, and growing state intervention in French coal mining, from before 1800 to the present. The mining industry is well suited to this blend of topics because of the miners' initial militancy and later reformism, the large companies' early develop- ment of modern management techniques, and the state's ample role both as regulator and as spur to productivity. The choice of Decazeville aptly targets a town literally created by new industry, a "company town" in which managers long controlled local com- merce and even political life. The lengthy period studied allows Reid to survey the rise and decline of local industry, a survey emphasizing structural changes but punctuated with tales of strikes and other dramatic events. Reid's main argument, as his subtitle suggests, is that "deindustrialization" had human consequences comparable to the better-known effects of industrial progress. Economic difficulties, which finally prompted the mines' closure in the 1960s, had led managers to tighten control over the labor process and unions to evolve a "national political strategy" (p. 128) for winning legislative benefits rather than direct gains from employers. The economics of deindustrialization are, however, less fully described here. Nor is it clear how unique these effects were to this "declining region" (p. 148), since miners else- where in France experienced similar pressures and developed comparable strategies in national unions such as the Confederation G6nerale du Travail. Reid implies that miners in wealthier regions such as the Nord could act on their own and place less value on nationwide organization. The idea that labor strategies vary with levels of regional prosperity or with phases in a "genealogy of deindustrialization" is intriguing and might be more explicitly advanced. Perhaps the point is that in this book politics takes second place to the sociological consequences of a process that created a distinct mining proletariat, an intermediate cadre of engineers and supervisors, and an elite of managers or directors who turned from paternalism to industrial rationalization. Just as important to this story as the miners' debates over rival union strategies is the emergence of separate unionization among engineers and supervisors, nei- ther prolabor nor fully promanagement in view- point: they opposed the strikes of 1947, which compromised productivity, but then took labor's side in those of 1961-62 against the shutdown of the mines. The book's sociological dimension is further strengthened by an appendix that draws a social profile of nineteenth-century miners, demonstrat- ing their occupational identity as distinct from local metalworkers and unskilled laborers. Indeed, the emphasis here on nineteenth-century develop- ments, before deindustrialization had fullest impact, shows the book's wider focus on miners' attitudes toward their industry, their town, and their country. Reid's study of deindustrialization raises timely questions about state responsibility toward disad- vantaged regions but does not neglect longer-term issues that are of equal concern to historians. KATHRYN E. AMDUR Emory University GERVASE CLARENCE-SMITH. The Third Portuguese Em- pire, 1825-1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism. Dover, N.H.: Manchester University Press. 1985. Pp. ix, 246. $29.50. Portugal experienced three cycles of imperialism. The first, expansion in Asia in the sixteenth century, shortly left her mere remnants of colonies. The second cycle began with the colonization of Brazil, which, until its independence in 1825, offered more enduring opportunities for occupation. Although Portugal established a presence at scattered entrep6ts centuries earlier, its third empire com- menced with the scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century. With its occupation of the inte- rior of Angola and Mozambique, Portugal at- tempted to create a new Brazil. In the preface, Gervase Clarence-Smith poses a problem: why were the Portuguese in southern Africa? If imperialism is viewed as an expression of domestic politics, another question surfaces: how did imperialism redistribute power among the var- ious classes in Portugal? The hypothesis is that the driving force behind imperial expansion was the search for markets, or neomercantilism. The second and third empires are particularly interesting examples of subimperialism, expansion under the aegis of a greater power. Sadly, the monograph deals lightly with the relationship- sometimes cooperative, sometimes adversarial-be- tween dominant Britain and subdominant Portugal. The first third of the monograph describes com- merce in the Portuguese-speaking world before 1850. The circulation of goods, capital, entrepre- neurs, and labor within this far-flung world is sketched through some biographies. The middle third deals with the occupation of the African inte- rior, from 1850 to 1926. The last third of the monograph offers interest- ing insights into the Salazar period (1926-61) and the breakdown of colonialism (1961-75). The in- transigence of the Salazar regime toward colonial rebellions is attributed to the interest of the regime in its own survival rather than to economic gain, which is contrary to the author's working hypothe- This content downloaded from 92.63.101.193 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:04:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 680 Reviews of Books sis. In the last twenty years of colonialism, conflicts among white industrial, working-class, and peasant interests in various parts of the empire intensified. The third empire became increasingly valuable to some industrialists in traditional industries, but a liability to those wishing to link Portugal's newly industrializing economy to Europe. The interrela- tionships between metropolitan industrialization and decolonization are sketched all too briefly. Unfortunately, Clarence-Smith lacks a coherent conceptual scheme. The hypothesis that Portugal was driven by a neomercantilism is not cast in a verifiable manner. Indeed, the fragmentary evi- dence is not supportive. As indicated by trade data, the colonies rarely absorbed more than one-quarter of Portugal's exports. Their worth as a significant safety valve for surplus labor was insignificant, for the majority of emigrants went to Brazil, the United States, and France. The returns on capital invest- ment appear to be modest, at least until the 1950s. Fiscally, these colonies were subsidized by taxes from Macao, except during the 1940s and 1950s. The author offers no convincing scenarios of what would have happened to Portugal in the ab- sence of imperialism. Small, nonimperial countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, developed rapidly during the scramble for Africa. Was imperialism a substitute for reform and an obstacle to economic development? An examination of income from Af- rica to the various groups in the metropole would have been welcome. Clarence-Smith's contribution to the historiogra- phy of imperialism is modest. One wishes that more emphasis had been placed on the subjects of the last two chapters, which are superb. MARTIN T. KATZMAN University of Texas, Dallas MICHAEL MEYER. Strindberg. New York: Random House. 1985. Pp. xvi, 651. $24.95. Michael Meyer is known for his biography of Henrik Ibsen, and on the back cover of his new book about August Strindberg the Ibsen volume is described as one of the truly great biographies by ten reviewers, none of whom, with the possible exception of Eva Le Gallienne, is an established Ibsen scholar. Meyer surely is not: most Scandina- vian specialists will find that, rather than being praised for his original scholarship, Meyer should in both these books be viewed as an editor, writer, translator, and literary critic. Strindberg, we are told, is one of history's seven internationally great dramatists and, among them, possibly the one who led the strangest life. Nevertheless, a substantial biography in English has not been available until now. That this book, written by an Englishman for English readers, now exists is in itself remarkable. To a non-Swede, Mey- er's account of Strindberg's early years will appear quite full, although naturally in a book aimed at an international audience the author emphasizes the playwright's European life, exile abroad (including his years of near-insanity in Paris, where he tried to turn sulphur into gold) and final years in Sweden, where he died in 1912. We hear of his three (almost four) stormy marriages, his cruel treatment of friends and enemies, his innovative painting and photography, and, of course, his literary produc- tion. Meyer's account is lively throughout; indeed, for anyone unfamiliar with Strindberg's life this book is difficult to put down. There are also few omissions and few factual mistakes. Meyer writes about Strindberg's anti-Semitism, but nowhere in this 650-page book does he mention Ernst Josephson, Sweden's greatest painter, of Jewish descent, whom Strindberg admired and with whom he identified. Meyer also includes Norway's best-known novelist, Knut Hamsun, in the Black Porker circle in Berlin, which is perhaps a forgiveable mistake because Hamsun intended to join the Black Porkers but never did. For a literary biographer, Meyer often seems lacking in critical insight but nonetheless arrogant in his judgments. He tells us outright that Strindberg's poetry is overrated and that his novels, with the exception of The People of Hemns, are fatally flawed; this is perhaps an attempt to appear independent vis-a-vis the secondary works. More serious is his lack of admiration for the man, which colors the entire treatment. Even objective observers of Strindberg would be hard put to accept Harriet Bosse's characterization of her husband as "the finest man I have ever known" (p. 571), and, as Meyer points out, the testimony of enemies is as essential a part of any biography as the evidence of friends. But, although a great man may not be likeable, a certain degree of sympathy for him is necessary in any biographer who hopes to treat his subject fairly. An example is the discussion of the character Zachris (in Black Banners) as a hateful portrait of Strindberg's old friend Gustaf af Geijer- stam: Meyer joins the public in its "indignation [over] this extraordinary and sustained libel" (p. 488), whereas Olof Lagerkrantz, in his recent book on Strindberg (1979), sees Zachris also as a devas- tating self-portrait. Although in her own biography (1949) Elizabeth Sprigge comes out tirelessly under- standing of Strindberg, she writes that "he invites us to dislike him"; Meyer has not been able to resist this invitation. Lagerkrantz is not mentioned in Meyer's five-page bibliography of "works which I have This content downloaded from 92.63.101.193 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:04:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p. 679 p. 680 Issue Table of Contents The American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Jun., 1986), pp. i-x+519-790+1a-38a Front Matter [pp. i - x] The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem [pp. 519 - 552] Reflections on the Medieval German Nobility [pp. 553 - 575] AHR Forum Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages [pp. 576 - 591] Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom [pp. 592 - 613] [Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts/Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy]: Comment [pp. 614 - 624] Reviews of Books General untitled [pp. 625 - 626] untitled [pp. 626 - 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