Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of Carl Knies (1882)

Böhm-Bawerk’s short review of the first half of Carl Knies’s Die politische Oekonomie vom geschichtlichen Standpunkte argues for the enduring significance of a foundational work of historical economics. Its focus is the book’s reception and republication, rather than an exposition of its economic doctrines. The opening treats an unchanged reprinting almost thirty years after initial publication as evidence of intellectual vitality:

Dies seltene Geschick ist unlängst dem oben angekündigten Werke des hochverdienten Nationalökonomen Carl Knies zu Theil geworden.

English translation: This rare fate has recently fallen to the work, announced above, of the highly deserving economist Carl Knies.

The central contrast is between Knies’s eventual standing and his initially limited recognition. Böhm-Bawerk assigns the book a leading role in establishing the methodological foundations of Germany’s historical school, yet notes that its timely appearance in 1853 brought little acknowledgment or circulation. Recognition followed the wider success of the movement it had helped establish:

Erst in neuerer Zeit, nachdem die von Knies mitbegründete historische Richtung längst in allgemeinen Aufschwung gekommen, begann man häufiger auf das mittlerweile alt gewordene, aber nicht veraltete Buch zurückzugreifen und ihm seinen verdienten Rang zuzuerkennen.

English translation: Only in more recent times, after the historical direction which Knies helped to found had long since come into general ascendancy, did people begin more frequently to have recourse to the book, which had meanwhile grown old but had not become obsolete, and to accord it its deserved rank.

The distinction between an old book and an obsolete one supplies the review’s conceptual hinge: delayed reception need not diminish scholarly importance. Böhm-Bawerk then describes the new edition as substantively unchanged but enlarged by independent additions, with a revised title shifting from the standpoint of “historical method” to the “historical standpoint.” He records that only the first division is available and that the second is expected during 1882, without drawing a theoretical conclusion from the title change. The closing recommendation addresses readers concerned with fundamental questions of national political and economic life. The review thus documents Böhm-Bawerk’s strong recognition of Knies’s methodological and historical importance, while offering no detailed assessment of his doctrines.