Technology and Culture

444 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE less well-known products of Victorian ingenuity, it can be given a wel­ come as a foretaste, it may be hoped, of a larger study of invention in the Victorian period. This is certainly a study which would be worth making. The history of technology tends to honor the successful inven­ tion and to forget the plethora of failures, both ingenious and bizarre, from which it emerged, so that it is a valuable corrective to be re­ minded of the great underworld of forgotten inventions. Some of the inventions treated in the selection under review, such as the atmospheric railway experiments and the Bessemer saloon steamship, will be well known to many readers, but others, such as the plans for a channel tunnel, machines for “sensational emotions,” and the possibility of cross­ ing the Atlantic in fifteen hours by means of a nitroglycerine-powered rocket-engined airplane, are less familiar but fascinating ideas. All are discussed in this selection, in what is presumably an authentic contem­ porary description. The presumption is necessary because the reader is never told. The title page gives Maurice Rickards as having “edited and presented” the work, but exactly what he has edited and how much is his presentation is at no point stated. Most of the material seems to have been assembled in the 1890s, but there are no references to patent specifications, adver­ tisements, news reports, or other source materials, and there are no explanatory notes, although both are essential in order to give the work any scholarly value. The omission of these items leads one sadly to conclude that the book is intended as light relief. Let us hope that it may rather stimulate somebody to attempt the genuine “comprehensive survey” which this book purports to make but fails to tackle. R. A. Buchanan* The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. Vols. 10 and 11. Editor, Harold C. Syrett; Associate Editor, Jacob E. Cooke. New York: Columbia Uni­ versity Press, 1966. Pp. xix-|-615; xiv-j-657. $12.50 each. It is difficult to exaggerate the influence of Alexander Hamilton on American history. In an era dominated by sectional concerns, the power of his mind was especially directed toward the development of a national economy. As Washington’s secretary of the treasury, Hamilton prepared a series of reports which summarized a remarkably wellintegrated program designed to meet the national debt, establish a bank­ ing system, invigorate the public credit, and encourage the development of manufacturing in America. The latter subject, in particular, makes The Papers of Alexander Hamilton of interest to historians of American technology. The two volumes nicely complement one another. Volume 10 is * Dr. Buchanan, senior lecturer in social history and director of the Centre for the Study of the History of Technology at Bath University, England, is the author of Technology and Social Progress. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 445 mainly concerned with the five drafts of Hamilton’s “Report on Manu­ factures.” Presented to Congress in 1791, it contained a closely reasoned argument for government support of manufactures. More clearly than most of his contemporaries, Hamilton recognized that economic inde­ pendence called for the creation of a national market, sustained by the interplay of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. There were serious doubts, however, whether America could effectively compete with imported goods, and indeed, whether the nation’s productive ca­ pacity should not better be employed in agriculture. Hamilton’s report as the editors point out, skillfully blended a critique of Adam Smith, physiocratic economic thought, and the arguments of such native indus­ trial promoters as Tench Coxe. In it, Hamilton provided not only the theoretical defense of governmental support of industry, but a series of proposals to implement his ideas. He argued, mainly under the general welfare clause of the Constitu­ tion, for a system of bounties to encourage manufactures, and national premiums and awards for the same purpose, to supplement similar efforts by private societies promoting industry. He called for tariffs and customs exemptions, federal support for internal improvements, and an extension of the patent law to reward “introducers” of new methods as well as inventors of new machines. Hamilton conceived of those mea...