Reviews of Books

This volume offers a fresh approach to the study of eighteenth-century German emigration. Growing out of a conference organized by Hartmut Lehmann in 1992, it gathers together fourteen essays on the migrations of German-speaking peoples on both sides of the Atlantic world. The outlook is comparative, the intellectual framework comprehensive. Contributors examine Old World economic, social, and political settings, cultural continuity in the migration process, and individual and group requirements and adjustments in a new environment. Its broad theme is manifest in the title: whatever their destination, eighteenth-century German emigrants were "in search of peace and prosperity."	1
The collection is organized into five parts. In part one, "The Scene," Hermann Wellenreuther portrays the intellectual milieu of the eighteenth- century German states, with particular attention to cameralist thought; in this setting, emigration gains significance as a protest against political mismanagement and the rulers' failure to provide good government. A "culture of migrating" (p. 29) shaped people's daily experiences. Even in Europe it included "crossing borders, experiencing different vernaculars, languages, customs, laws, and bureaucrats" (p. 26), and it thus prepared families and groups for the emigration process. Wellenreuther argues that people decided to emigrate in order to improve their situation, even as they tried to preserve their own culture by recreating the "fatherland" and maintaining close links to the home country.	2
Part two, "New Settlements in Europe," makes plain that migration in the early modern period—relocation across considerable distances into a receiving society clearly distinct from the society of origin—occurred in Europe in competition with transatlantic movements. Emigrants had choices, and they weighed their options: where would they be free to pursue their religious, economic, and cultural aspirations? what inducements (including generous state incentives) were offered for emigration and settlement? Not by coincidence do the three contributions to this section deal with religious groups: the persecuted Huguenots, of whom a sizable portion accepted German rulers' invitations to settlement and for whom the congregation was central to preserving their values and culture (Thomas Klingebiel); the Salzburg Protestants, many of whom relocated in East Prussia with obvious advantages for both the emigrants and Brandenburg-Prussia (Mack Walker); and the emigration to Russia of Moravians, Mennonites, and chiliastic pietists, who were granted generous conditions, notably, economic advantages and religious tolerance (Andreas Gestrich).	. . .