Eugen Peter Schwiedland: Double Review of Seligmann and Demangeon (1922)

Schwiedland’s double review joins Seligmann’s economic explanation of great-power rivalry to Demangeon’s account of Europe’s diminished position after the First World War. Their complementarity structures the review: historical competition leads to a diagnosis of global economic change and then to Schwiedland’s conditions for European recovery.

In his account of Seligmann, England’s principal adversary changes with the economic basis of power: Holland contests maritime supremacy in the seventeenth century, France colonial predominance in the eighteenth, and Germany exports of goods and capital in the twentieth. England’s coalition policy follows these shifting interests. The unresolved question is whether it will oppose or accommodate the United States. Peace, in this interpretation, depends on development making disruption of exchange intolerably costly:

Eine Zeit des Friedens werde erst eintreten, bis die Entfaltung aller Länder jede Störung des allgemeinen Tauschverkehrs als höchst nachteilig werde empfinden lassen.

English translation: A time of peace will not set in until the development of all countries causes every disturbance of general exchange to be felt as highly detrimental.

Demangeon supplies the postwar counterpart: industrialization outside Europe, together with Japanese and American industrial, shipping, and financial expansion, has weakened Europe’s privileged position. Schwiedland praises the geographer’s sober clarity but turns this diagnosis into an injunction of his own:

Unser Leben wird von unseren Leistungen für die Erdteile abhängen und wird nicht üppig sein; wie ich an anderer Stelle ausgeführt: Besinnung und Arbeit allein kann uns aufrechterhalten.

English translation: Our life will depend upon our services to the continents and will not be opulent; as I have set forth elsewhere: reflection and work alone can sustain us.

The shift from reporting Demangeon to speaking of “our” livelihood makes European decline a practical responsibility. Recovery requires productive service rather than continued enjoyment of inherited advantage. Schwiedland closes with three linked hopes: world organization under emerging American leadership, a beneficial settlement between England and Washington, and goodwill among Europe’s peoples. The review’s significance lies in this movement from economic rivalry to interdependence: Europe’s future rests not simply on its own labor, but also on international accommodation and cooperation.