[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), A Question of Style -
A Review of Arne Kommisrud's State, Nation, Empire: The Habsburg Monarchy, Tsar-Russia
and the Soviet Union, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/961118.htm]
A Question of Style
A review of Arne Kommisrud's State, Nation, Empire: The Habsburg
Monarchy, Tsar-Russia and the Soviet Union
by Hans O. Melberg
State, Nation, Empire: The Habsburg Monarchy, Tsar-Russia and the Soviet Union
- A Historical Sociological Perspective
(Original Norwegian title: Stat, nasjon, imperium: Habsburgmonarkiet, Tsar-Russland og
Sovjetunionen. Et historisk sosiologisk perspektiv)
Spartacus forlag, Oslo, 1996, 384 pages, ISBN: 82-430-0067-4
The book under review, Arne Kommisrud's State, Nation, Empire is best left
unread and unopened on the shelf. It is full of stylistic mistakes which makes it boring
and uninformative reading. This is unfortunate because all the ingredients of a good book
was available: An interesting subject and an author who - due to his doctoral dissertation
on the subject and language skills - should possess all the relevant information. However,
this may also be the key to some of the flaws since the style of a doctoral dissertation
is not the style required to produce a good book.
The main aim of the book is to examine the relationship between the stability of
countries using the relationship between the nations within the country as an explanatory
variable (p. 26). To fulfil this aim Kommisrud presents three case studies: the Habsburg
Monarchy, Tsar-Russia and the Soviet Union. This may be a worthwhile project, but after
reading the book I did not feel my understanding of the relationship had improved
significantly. The question is then why I failed to benefit from the book.
First of all there are several minor stylistic mistakes which distracted my attention.
Starting with the very minor there was an excessive use of quotation marks, italics, and
inelegant presentation using the format "a), b), c)" or "1), 2), 3)."
Occasionally the language was flawed both in the choice of words ("policy", p.
157; "drive", p. 168, "konsumpsjonen", p. 176) and, more seriously, in
his constant use of the passive form of the verb. These are admittedly minor mistakes, but
when they are frequently encountered they inevitably reduce the quality of the book and
distract the attention from the main themes.
A more fatal stylistic flaw is the authors love of models, theories, and concepts. For
example, the book does not really get started until page 44 because the author presents
some of the models he wants to use - the two main perspectives being Stein Rokkan's model
of political development and Otto Bauer's approach to nationalism. But these are not the
only models used. As the book progresses we encounter the theory of combined and uneven
development, dependency models, theories of modernisation, theories of the advantages of
relative backwardness, theories of nationalism, Weber's non-linear concept of causality,
Rokkan's "crisis-accumulation-syndrome" and several other perspectives and
approaches. Of course, it would be absurd to demand that the book should avoid theories,
but at the same time a good book would integrate the presentation of theories within the
empirical discussion. Isolated, long and abstract methodological discussions seldom makes
for good reading (as I know from personal mistakes), although they appear to be mandatory
in doctoral dissertations.
At a more general level I have to express my surprise at the ease by which political
scientists use the term model (and theory). At least in economics the term
model is used to describe a set of clearly defined relationships within a determined
system (i.e. it is possible to isolate the effects of a shift in one variable given the
number of functions relative to the number of variables). In political science the term
must have a looser meaning, but surely a mere hypothesis about the relationship between
two variables does not deserve to be called a model (or a theory). I suspect that the term
is over(ab)used because it - undeserved in political science - has awe-inspiring
scientific connotation.
Given the flaws described above one might ask whether the book has any merits at all?
The answer is positive mainly because of the book's utility as an encyclopaedia of
empirical facts. Since I am no expert on the Habsburg Monarchy, the book was of some use
simply as an informative descriptive presentation. For example, when discussing the
Habsburg Monarchy the author describes a situation in which the Magyars in Hungary
dominated to a much greater extent than the Germans in Austria - a difference he argues is
crucial in understanding why the Habsburg Monarchy lacked the flexibility to remain a
multi-ethnic state given the effects of industrialism (education of elites in the other
nations and growing economic inequalities). Hence, Kommisrud's book has some value as a
purely descriptive account for the non-expert, although this value is reduced by the fact
that non-experts are unlikely to enjoy his methodological discussions.
A second source of value is that the book presents a large number of tables and useful
statistical information. However, once again the author makes stylistic mistakes. The
reader is sometimes overloaded with an excess of numbers and statistics as when Kommisrud
discusses whether Ukraine contributed more than it received from the USSR. In a book of
this type - as opposed to a doctoral dissertation - it would be enough to say that Ukraine
was a net-contributor to the centre with a loss for Ukraine of about 10% of its gross
national product each year (p. 260). One might make a few comments on how one finds this
figure, but it is not useful to enter into a detailed statistical discussion since the
general reader simply cannot digest too many numbers. I am also sceptical of the quality
of some of the numbers presented - such as accepting at face value Soviet estimates of the
rates of literacy in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union (p. 196) or whether it is
possible at all to give an accurate estimate of Ukraine's net contribution to the USSR.
These doubts reduce the books usefulness as a source of statistical information, as does
the fact that the book does not have an index or an overview of all the tables.
In conclusion I believe this book represents a lost opportunity to create a good book.
As it is the reader is distracted by the minor stylistic flaws and bored by the major
stylistic flaws. Although I gained some factual information I believe this aim is better
satisfied by other books.
[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1996), A Question of Style - A
Review of Arne Kommisrud's State, Nation, Empire: The Habsburg Monarchy, Tsar-Russia
and the Soviet Union, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/961118.htm]