Reviewed by Robert MacKenzie
The University of Alabama
William Woodruff is Graduate Research Professor in Economic History at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Author of a widely acclaimed treatise published in 1966 entitled lmpact of Western Man: A Study of Europe’s Role in the World Economy, 1750-1960, as well as numerous other books and scholarly articles, Professor Woodruff has now followed with another impressive volume, America’s impact on the World: A Study of the Role of the United States in the World Economy, 1750-1970.
The subject is broad, the viewpoint unique, and the task challenging. Woodruff has responded with insight and great synthesizing skill. Furthermore, he writes clearly and smoothly, and the reader finds his path through a complex subject considerably eased.
The book is brief (only 184 pages of text) but tightly constructed to cover its subject. It consists of eight chapters. Chapter one skillfully reviews the colonial period. Chapter two describes the course of American expansion across a continent and into the world. Chapter three places the American experience in its world context. Chapter four analyzes America’s influence on world finance. Chapter five comments on the impact of American technology; Chapter six upon America’s contribution to the conquest of distance. Chapter seven analyzes the role of America in world commerce, and Chapter eight is the epilogue, consisting of the author’s seasoned reflections upon his subject.
The most important chapters to the reader interested in economic history are chapters four and seven. Each is based upon abundant statistical material concerning world finance and commerce, attractively and effectively displayed in a series of tables at the end of the volume. Both chapters are balanced analyses of the economic role of the United States, sharpened by provocative insights into current world dilemmas. This is history at its best, brought to bear upon current and future problems.
The handling of a subject as broad as that chosen by Professor Woodruff is, of course, open to a number of criticisms. Although he skillfully handles historiographical controversies swirling about the many points of interpretation traversed in his general narrative and although his extensive bibliography and germane use of footnotes attest to his familiarity with those controversies, he generally comes down on the side of older interpretations. Thus, his conceptual framework for discussion of the nineteenth century rests more on Charles Beard than upon that path-breaking scholar’s later critics.
Woodruff’s brief treatment of Reconstruction likewise is little influenced by the historiography of the last decade. In another vein, his narrative has little to say about the Third World and the developing importance of Africa and the Middle East. Chronologically, Woodruff’s historical focus is preponderently upon the pre-World War I period, with later developments more briefly treated. These criticisms, however, are the quibblings of a specialist or may be understood in the light of the natural course of the development of historical knowledge and Woodruff’s perspective as a former resident of Britain who views the United States as essentially the inheritor of the English tradition.
On the whole, the book is filled with incisive analyses. The reader may note in particular excellent summations on pages 66-67, concerning Americans in a world context; on pages 86-87, regarding American business impact abroad; and on pages 128-129, concerning the role of industrialization in economic development.
Just as Woodruff is an economic historian of the old school, giving little attention to econometrics and that technique’s impersonaliza-tion, his epilogue emphasizes the intangible values of the American spirit.
Recognizing the current crisis in American self-confidence, Woodruff wisely calls for a look within: “It is not science and technology, not magic formulas for nations to grow rich, not computerized predictions of doomsday, not new laws, however well conceived and wisely framed, that will eventually determine America’s destiny in the world. It is man (p. 184).” In view of today’s energy crisis and other problems and the entrance of the United States upon the celebration of its 200th birthday, a celebration hopefully dedicated to a search for future meaning and purpose, Woodruff’s book is an excellent volume to read and reflect upon, Woodruff stands with William Faulkner in pointing to man’s capacity to prevail, and he vividly points to that quality in the American past. It is a worthwhile reminder.
(Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 7, 1975)
