Carl Menger’s newspaper review surveys the development of economic encyclopedias and welcomes the revised Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. Its governing argument is practical: the growth and continual renewal of specialized knowledge make authoritative reference works indispensable to public decision-making. Parliamentary and administrative responsibilities demand judgments from people who often lack either specialist training or knowledge of where to seek reliable instruction.
Nirgends ist die Schwierigkeit und die Dringlichkeit der Belehrung indeß eine größere, als auf dem Gebiete der Staats- und der Socialwissenschaften.
English translation: Nowhere, however, is the difficulty and the urgency of instruction greater than in the field of the political and the social sciences.
Menger thus presents encyclopedic scholarship as a response to the intellectual demands of public life. Speed of consultation and depth of explanation must be combined. His historical opening traces the movement from general Staatslexika, once adequate to politicians and officials, toward specialized encyclopedias of economics, finance, and administration. A comparative survey of French, Italian, British, and American publications establishes the international setting. Germany’s existing reference works had offered too little or adopted partly outdated perspectives, while Furrer’s Swiss lexicon chiefly addressed Swiss conditions. This deficiency was particularly striking given the density of administrative institutions, universities, parliamentary bodies, and journalism in Germany and Austria.
The review then turns to the Handwörterbuch, organized by Johann Conrad, Edgar Loening, Ludwig Elster, and W. Lexis. Menger locates its achievement in the coordination of expertise: contributors were recruited, wherever possible, for the subjects on which they had already distinguished themselves. Editorial initiative made the dispersed knowledge of theorists and practitioners available in a comprehensive, practically organized form. The six-volume first edition, published in 1890–1894 and followed by two supplements, brought Germany into the front rank of economic reference publishing. Menger places Elster’s shorter dictionary and Mischler and Ulbrich’s Austrian state dictionary alongside this achievement, distinguishing their scale and territorial or legal emphasis.
Commercial success supports his judgment of the work’s public usefulness:
Kurz nachdem dasselbe vollendet war, war es bereits vergriffen, wol der beste Beweis dafür, daß das Werk einem wirklichen und lebhaft empfundenen Bedürfnisse des deutschen Lesepublicums entsprochen hat.
English translation: Shortly after it was completed it was already out of print, probably the best proof that the work met a real and keenly felt need of the German reading public.
The new edition, begun in 1898 and expected to be completed later in 1901, receives attention for more than updated historical and statistical information. Menger emphasizes revisions to existing essays and the addition of new treatments. His ensuing survey of contributors shows the breadth of the undertaking: banking and trade, agrarian questions and land law, population, public finance, trade unions, insurance, socialism, and anarchism. Scholars appear beside senior officials and financial practitioners. Encyclopedic authority emerges from the organized conjunction of research and administrative experience.
The final portion concentrates on Austrian participation. Menger interprets it both as recognition of Austrian economists and as a guarantee that the encyclopedia will serve Austrian readers:
Es liegt hierin nicht nur eine Anerkennung des Ansehens, dessen sich die österreichischen Volkswirthe in Deutschland erfreuen, sondern für das österreichische Lesepublicum zugleich die beste Bürgschaft für die eingehende Berücksichtigung österreichischer Verhältnisse in dem Werke.
English translation: Herein lies not only a recognition of the standing which Austrian economists enjoy in Germany, but at the same time, for the Austrian reading public, the best guarantee of a thorough consideration of Austrian conditions in the work.
The extensive concluding roster gives this claim concrete substance. Böhm-Bawerk contributes on capital, Wieser on goods and marginal utility, Zuckerkandl on price and the Austro-Hungarian Bank, and Menger himself on money. These theoretical subjects sit alongside labor protection, taxation, statistics, commercial institutions, and legal history. The review also records contributors from several university centers and Austrian scholars working abroad, making visible the scholarly and official networks sustaining the enterprise.
The article’s significance lies in this account of how economic knowledge becomes publicly usable. Menger does not develop the theories assigned to individual contributors; he evaluates the institutional means by which specialized inquiry can be assembled, renewed, and consulted. His praise joins intellectual comprehensiveness to practical accessibility, while the sustained attention to Austrian contributors links disciplinary standing with adequate representation of local institutions and conditions.
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