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At times of transition in the history of thought, we find thinkers who open and close doors, often in exploratory or surprising ways, and others who map out whole new programmes of enquiry. The sketch of Bergson's work in this chapter will set it in context, and show it as opening and closing doors, rather than as providing a manifesto for a new philosophical programme. Analysis in philosophy Nineteenth-century debates over positivism and idealism were displaced in time by other themes, in which a renewed interest in analysis had a major part. The analytic method had played a central role in European thought since Descartes. His invention of analytic geometry, and the later invention by Leibniz and Newton of the calculus, had been inseparable from major advances in natural science, as well as leaving their imprint upon philosophical work more generally. But analysis, while not indifferent to the temporal dimension, treats it on the model of spatial dimensions (indeed, Descartes had described his physics, which was, after all, destined to give an account of physical change over time, as nothing but pure geometry). Now the nineteenth century had seen a new concern with diachronic explanation, whether as an idealist project in the wake of Hegel, or as a disciplinary project in linguistics (historical linguistics), in economics (Marx), in biology (Darwin, Mendel), in textual criticism, and so forth. This had, for the time, displaced the analytic method from its central (though contested) position as the key to our understanding of the phenomena of our world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although historians and anthropologists may understand the indigenous history of northwestern Mexico as multiple processes of cultural change in which discrete and composite groups continuously fashioned and refashioned their identities in the context of attempts by outsiders to dominate them, very different convictions shape indigenous views of the past. As the text quoted above indicates, the Rarámuri or Tarahumara rendering of history emphasizes the importance of memory in preserving an incorruptible worldview as well as the polarization that distinguishes “the people” from outsiders. The reproduction of knowledge is a culturally embedded social process for this particular northwestern Indian group – just as it is for non-Rarámuris (known to natives as chabochis, or children of the devil). The recounting that follows, although told with deep regard for indigenous cultures, is one that will be most intelligible to outsiders. It will be told as a history, not of a simple tension between survival and incorporation but of complex processes of resistance, obfuscation, accommodation, appropriation, subversion, revival, and invention. Nor is it a history in which critical symbols of cultural identity such as language, religion, land, and purity of blood can be neatly isolated to account for ethnogenesis. Moreover, in the northwest the interaction of native peoples with European intruders bore the peculiar stamp of a frontier volatility that lasted beyond the colonial period. Incorporation of the region by Spain and Mexico took place erratically over more than three centuries as expansionist states competed in North America, transforming interaction and migration patterns among groups less sedentary than Indian peoples to the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent were the technological diffusion processes, which have been described in the above chapters, typical of other firms and other countries in the nineteenth century? In focussing on the technological, rather than the economic or commercial bases of Norwegian textile development, this study has concentrated – in terms both of sources and treatment – on the recipients of technology, and on the technological problems which British suppliers solved for them. The central theme has been the importance of active, expansionary market-seeking by the British textile engineering industry, and by the specialized agencies which sold its products. The existence of this industry, and its readiness to supply a complex array of information, equipment and labour, seems to have been a primary condition for the rapidity with which a modern, mechanized textile industry was constructed in Norway from the mid 1840s. What might have been a major bottleneck in the diffusion process, namely the engineering inexperience and relative lack of technical expertise among Norwegian textile entrepreneurs and workers, was overcome through the willingness of British machinery makers and suppliers to provide not only equipment but, in effect, technological packages comprising a wide range of technical services. These ‘packages’ included: basic information on the technical requirements of new enterprises and on the availability of techniques, the evaluation and assessment of innovations, help with choice of technique, the supply of drawings and blueprints, provision of cost and output projections, the supply of machinery and all ancillary equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of a mechanized textile industry in Norway was a component of wider industrial growth in that country. But this in turn was, of course, part of a general spread of industrialization throughout Europe from the late eighteenth century. This process was, arguably, the decisive historical event of the modern period, for it involved far more than changes in production methods and levels of output, important though these were. The industrialization process also involved, perhaps was ultimately caused by, major changes in social and economic organization, and it led to significant shifts in regional structures, patterns and levels of trade, and the distribution of both inter- and intra-national political power. Moreover, this process was not a once and for all affair. On the contrary, it installed, throughout Europe and North America, a new economic regime within which the emergence and spread of new technologies have been pervasive. This large-scale historical process has given rise to two broad areas of inquiry relevant to this study. One is historical: the economic history of the industrialization of nations and regions. The other is analytic: the economics of technological change. Broadly speaking, the literature relevant to early industrialization and the international diffusion of new technologies falls into three categories: Economic histories of the spread of industrialization, or reflections on the problem of industrialization from an historical standpoint. Such works are typically wide in scope, examining all of Western Europe, and frequently including discussion of Russia and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underlying this study is the idea that we still know relatively little about the technological basis of European economic growth in the mid nineteenth century. The technologies employed within continental Europe changed sharply as it industrialized, but how did this happen? The following chapters are concerned with this aspect of European industrialization; they are in large part an empirical study of a pattern of technological diffusion, describing the acquisition and adaptation of British textile technologies by a peripheral European economy, Norway, from the early 1840s to around 1870. However, the focus of the study is not as narrow as this summary might suggest, for the empirical study is intended to throw some light on a wider, and to my mind very important, issue in the economic history of Europe. Explaining the process of industrialization which occurred throughout much of Europe from around the middle of the nineteenth century has long been a key problem for economic history, yet its treatment remains unsatis factory; for, although the literature on the topic is already very large, important questions remain unresolved. Continental industrialization involved new forms of enterprise in the creation of new industries or the transformation of existing ones, and a broad yet profound process of technological change. But what mechanisms generated, diffused and adapted these technologies? How did continental entrepreneurs and managers acquire the technological capacities first to operate the new technologies and secondly to do so at levels of efficiency sufficient to withstand competition from the world's technological leader, Britain? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Norwegian textile industrialization occurred within the context of change and transition in both the British and Norwegian economies. In Norway the growth and development of a market economy, and in Britain an important structural change within the world's leading market economy, established conditions for a transfer of technology between the two. These changes produced, on the one hand, the capacity to generate a process of outward technology transfer and, on the other, a fertile environment for the reception and use of foreign techniques. This chapter deals with the contours of these changes, necessarily in outline, for a full treatment of the changes in economic activity in Norway, let alone in Britain, at that time would be a substantial task. The aim here is more modest; it is simply to describe some of the preconditions for technology transfer. If, in the previous chapter, I have been critical of the Gerschenkronian approach to the ‘prerequisites’ of industrialization, that is because of the incompleteness of such approaches. It is not because there are no prerequisites. We are concerned here, therefore, with some of the conditions which made technological diffusion possible between these two economies; later chapters will describe in detail how it actually occurred. Norway in the Early Nineteenth Century In considering Norwegian economic development it should be borne in mind first and foremost that we are dealing with a country which is large in size, yet very small in population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter focuses on the individuals who staff the Soviet economic bureaucracy. It divides Soviet bureaucrats into three general categories: khoziaistvenniks (persons who perform resource allocation and are held responsible for results), apparatchiks (persons who issue instructions and rules to the khoziaistvenniks), and technocrats (individuals who serve the former two groups in a technical rather than decisionmaking capacity). We show that each bureaucratic type behaves differently and works under different conditions of reward and risk. Organization of Soviet bureaucratic units Each Soviet bureaucratic organization is set up according to official instructions concerning its functions and makeup. For high-level organizations, these instructions are issued by the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers. At lower levels, they are issued by ministries or republican authorities. These instructions provide the operating rules and bylaws of the organization. Each organization is supposed to operate according to a set of instructions, called dolzhnostnye instrukstsii, which describe the duties and responsibilities of the organization and its management personnel. In many cases, these operating instructions are vague and general (e.g., “the obligation to organize on a scientific basis the work of subordinates”). Soviet authors complain about vague instructions, which give the management of the organization the opportunity to define responsibilities in its own way. Staffing instructions are typically worked out by the State Committee on Labor and Wages (Goskomtrud), which gives a “unified nomenclature of positions” (nomen klatura dolzhnostei sluzhashchikh). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restructuring the bureaucracy Without the support of the bureaucracy, Gorbachev's perestroika (restructuring) program cannot be implemented. Western experts presume that distinct elements of the Soviet bureaucracy oppose perestroika. They fear that bureaucratic opponents will pay it lip service, while quietly sabotaging it. This chapter attempts to anticipate how the Soviet economic bureaucracy will respond to perestroika and to determine whether the widespread fears of bureaucratic sabotage are justified. The Western literature often presents a black and white picture of Soviet bureaucratic thinking: Bureaucrats above the enterprise level are presumed to oppose reform because they fear loss of jobs, loss of power, and reduction of perquisites. In contrast, enlightened managers are presumed to favor reform that gives them increased freedom of action. They want to be free from the petty tutelage (opeka) of the ministries and intervention by the local party (podmen) to run their enterprises efficiently. This chapter shows that this categorization of the reluctant bureaucrat and enthusiastic manager obscures important undercurrents. An understanding of how the Soviet economic bureaucracy works – its rules of the game, its goals, and its methods – sheds light on the bureaucracy's probable reception of perestroika. The Soviet economic bureaucracy is diverse – much depends on personalities, assessment of responsibility and risk, and institutional affiliations – and consequently its reactions to perestroika will not be uniform. Nevertheless, how each person and bureaucratic organization deals with perestroika will determine, in the long run, its success or failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is impossible in Machiavelli's writings not to feel the pressure of the events of his time. His reflections and his political proposals refer directly to those events. Hence scholars, although using very different criteria for their interpretations, have often considered Machiavelli's major writings to be a direct and passionate response to the crisis of the republics or, on a wider plane, to that of the small Italian states – a crisis which he lived through without being able to witness its final outcome. This is the dominant theme in Federico Chabod's classic work on The Prince. But this same general conception already underlies Pasquale Villari's and Oreste Tommasini's massive nineteenth-century biographies, in which the Florentine secretary's life, his writings and his ‘times’ are tightly interwoven. This basic interpretation has recently been used, for instance, by Corrado Vivanti, who considers the Discourses to be not a theoretical work, but rather a concrete political proposal, a sort of manifesto for refounding the Italian republics in a political situation in which it was not yet clear what the final outcome would be. ‘Machiavelli and the crisis of the Italian republics’ is hence much too broad and much too widely debated a problem for me to be able to discuss it without restricting it somewhat and without making some preliminary remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the turbulence of Soviet history since 1917, students of Soviet politics have looked to the rise of new generations as a key source of change in the USSR. Upheavals from the Revolution and civil war, through collectivization to World War II and de-Stalinization, all created markedly divergent conditions in which succeeding generations have come of age. Life experiences and opportunities vary so much that new generations – among the leadership and the population alike – should have different political values and expectations of the Soviet system. If formative experiences shape adult political orientations, the terror of the 1930s should have left its mark on the Stalin generation, just as the thaw of the post-Stalin era should have created a less fearful and more critical cohort. Thus, the process of generational replacement could give a different cast to the Soviet political landscape. To borrow Karl Mannheim's (1972) phrase, generational differences may be fundamental guideposts for understanding social and political change in the USSR. Yet we have little empirical evidence on how the members of succeeding age groups vary in their relationship to the Soviet system – how the regime engages the members of each generation, or how they respond. Nor has it been possible to disentangle the political impact of rising educational levels and occupational attainments from the effects of generational replacement. This chapter is a first attempt to explore the political “generation gap” at the individual level, using interviews with recent emigrants conducted by the Soviet Interview Project to assess age cleavages in political involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]