En kort introduksjon til Norge på 1900-tallet. Forskjell og fellesskap [A brief introduction to Norway in the 20th century. Difference and community]

Abstract

other presentations of careers, and Asmussen makes use of them as examples of the different types of networks, caused by The Danish Asiatic Company. But in some cases – and the description of Boje is one of them – Asmussen perhaps moved a little too far away from the main story of the book in order to tell ‘the whole story’ of the person in question. Asmussen should, however, be praised for the thorough analysis of the network relations, in which the employees and especially the directors and other leading persons participated. Among other things, he points out that the Reformed Church in Copenhagen was an important meeting point for several influential persons in the company in the eighteenth century and for many other prosperous business men at that time as well. Likewise, the freemason organisation was of great importance as a transnational brotherhood of persons, many of whom were quite influential. Another interesting aspect is that the trade networks in the early modern time essentially depended more on persons than on commercial houses, companies or other ‘trade organizations’, even if many of these were economical powerful. The point is that the long distances, especially in intercontinental trade, rendered necessary for business people to use reliable commission agents and correspondence clerks, and a network of many trustworthy and competent persons meant a reduction of the risk of making unsuccessful transactions. Besides, I was quite surprised to see that The Danish Asiatic Company’s monopoly in China trade was broken already sometime in the end of the eighteenth century. According to other literature about the company this only happened after the Napoleonic wars. Provided with a lot of pictures of high quality, the book clearly addresses itself to a broad and large public. Asmussen’s narrative writing style, stressing the ‘the good story’ and putting fascinating persons in front, has great appeal, too. Indeed, Asmussen really deserves the flattering remarks about his work, written by several reviewers in Danish newspapers and online fora. I have however also read Asmussen’s original presentation in his PhD-thesis with many interesting reflections on network theory, prosopographical method and the special wiki, which he made in order to pick up all sorts of information from different sources about the employees in the company and other persons of interest. It is a pity that only a very few of these remarks and reflections have survived the transformation of the Ph.D.-thesis, as the theoretical framework and the methodical tools in this case could have been of interest to many readers. I’m lucky that I didn’t throw away my printed version of the thesis, when I got the book.