Island (1874)

“Island,” signed M. and attributed to Carl Menger, is a historical-economic review of Konrad Maurer’s study of Iceland from its discovery to the fall of the commonwealth. Written on the occasion of Iceland’s settlement millennium, Maurer’s book receives strong praise for its scholarship and vivid reconstruction of Norse life. The review then concentrates on a specific explanatory problem: whether changes in Icelandic agriculture demonstrate climatic deterioration. Its central distinction is between adaptation to an initially misunderstood environment and environmental damage caused by economic conduct.

The opening traces Iceland’s discovery and settlement, distinguishing early Celtic hermits from the later Norse migration. After recounting successive voyages and the island’s changing names, the reviewer identifies Ingolfr Arnarson’s settlement in 874 as the beginning of sustained colonization. Within roughly sixty years, immigration had filled the island to its presumed subsistence capacity. This narrative establishes the material constraints within which Icelandic economic life developed.

Turning to climate, the reviewer supports Maurer’s rejection of evidence drawn from remote geological periods and of the supposed historical freezing of Greenland through a changed Gulf Stream. Ancient praise of Iceland likewise proves little about climatic decline: settlers valued grass, fisheries, driftwood, seals, and seabirds, resources that remained central to the island’s economy. The argument replaces impressions of former abundance with comparison of particular productive conditions.

Island ist nicht, und war es auch offenbar nie, ein besonders günstiges Terrain für den Getreidebau.

English translation: Iceland is not, and evidently never was, a particularly favourable terrain for grain cultivation.

Short, cool summers restricted grain cultivation, while conditions unfavorable to cereals encouraged excellent pasture. The reviewer therefore treats livestock husbandry as a durable response to Iceland’s resources. Yet this does not mean that the first settlers immediately adopted the most suitable practices. They probably brought agricultural habits from Norway and learned through prolonged experience to alter them.

Es kann demnach wohl wahr sein und es sprechen sogar viele Wahrscheinlichkeitsgründe dafür, daß in Island ehedem mehr Getreide gebaut wurde als heutzutage, ohne daß doch um dessentwillen ein Wechsel des Klima’s angenommen zu werden braucht.

English translation: It may accordingly well be true, and indeed many grounds of probability speak for it, that in former times more grain was cultivated in Iceland than today, without any change of climate needing on that account to be assumed.

This is the review’s decisive conceptual move: a historical change in production need not imply a corresponding change in nature. Declining grain cultivation can register improved knowledge of local conditions rather than economic deterioration. Inherited habits and their gradual correction mediate between an environment and its economic use.

The reviewer nevertheless disputes Maurer’s dismissal of deforestation as climatically insignificant. Historical accounts of extensive woods and locally grown construction timber contrast with the low, sparse woodland of the reviewer’s present. Such testimony supports a distinction between an enduring natural limitation and a loss brought about by exploitation.

Diesen Waldstand mögen sie nun nach Art aller Völker damaliger Zeit rücksichtslos ausgebeutet haben, ohne daß die Natur so rasch Ersatz bot, als dies unter günstigen klimatischen Verhältnissen der Fall gewesen wäre.

English translation: This stand of forest they may then have exploited ruthlessly, after the manner of all peoples of that time, without nature providing replacement as quickly as would have been the case under favourable climatic conditions.

The claim remains conjectural, drawing on historical testimony and analogies with forest destruction elsewhere in Europe. Its explanatory force lies in connecting useful timber, intensive consumption, and slow regeneration. Economic activity could worsen the conditions under which later production occurred. The shift toward livestock might consequently reflect both successful adaptation and pressure from an environment damaged by earlier practices.

The conclusion combines these mechanisms. Islanders could correctly perceive diminished grain cultivation while misidentifying its causes as external cooling or altered ocean currents. The reviewer instead proposes a transition partly justified by economic circumstances and partly accelerated by destructive resource use.

So mag der Rückgang der isländischen Volkswirthschaft in gewissen Grenzen eine Wahrheit sein, ohne daß zu abenteuerlichen Erklärungsgründen die Zuflucht genommen zu werden brauchte.

English translation: Thus the decline of the Icelandic national economy may within certain limits be a truth, without any need to take refuge in fanciful grounds of explanation.

The review’s significance lies in this bounded explanation of decline. It neither equates agricultural change with impoverishment nor assumes that human adaptation leaves natural conditions untouched. By separating inherited practice, acquired knowledge, and resource depletion, it makes Icelandic economic history intelligible through the interaction of environmental constraints and human decisions.