Reviewed by:

• Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South by R. Scott Huffard Jr.
• William D. Bryan

For decades scholars have used the South to debate the nature of capitalism. R. Scott Huffard Jr.’s lively Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South offers a fresh take on this topic by using the railroad as a lens into the role of capitalism in transforming the New South. Railroads brought southerners into “the most direct contact imaginable” with the capitalist system while also serving as powerful symbols of capitalism, and Huffard skillfully shows that capitalism was “both an economic system and a culture” (pp. 2, 5).

Huffard deepens our understanding of the New South creed by demonstrating how railroad expansion underwrote its economic and cultural aspects. Rail lines highlighted the role of local company officials in rebuilding the region, while regional networks were deployed as evidence that the South had reconciled with the rest of the nation. Nowhere was this reconciliation more evident than the change to standard gauge in 1886, which reflected “how a decision that seemed strictly economic in nature could be influenced by culture” (p. 38).

Railroads also supported the racial vision of white boosters. Black southerners sought to take advantage of new opportunities for labor, mobility, and consumer activity. Yet they faced dangerous stereotypes deployed by white officials intended to keep them from enjoying the fruits of the railroad through segregation and violence, while also having their own role in building and working on railroads erased.

In Huffard’s telling, railroad companies did not reflect the corporate order described by Alfred Chandler so much as they served as “an agent of chaos” (p. 7). This chaos was a feature of capitalism, not a bug, and the core chapters of Engines of Redemption are focused on the “phantasmagoria” of the South’s railroads (chap. 2).

As yellow fever spread along rail corridors in the 1870s, for instance, it led communities to limit travel and impose quarantines—a process Huffard characterizes as “an upside-down version of the New South creed” (p. 134). The frequency of railroad wrecks exposed dangerous aspects of capitalism, but railroads deflected blame and limited their liability by mobilizing racially charged fears that Black wreckers were preying on trains. Even train wreck ballads glorified heroic individuals and ignored regional infrastructural deficiencies that caused wrecks. Train robbers like Rube Burrow and Railroad Bill [End Page 133] were not anticapitalists frustrated with the new order. By taking advantage of mobility and railroad standardization to accrue wealth, they also believed in “capitalism distilled to its purest and most violent form” (p. 197). Railroad officials also defused the most potent challenge to railroad capitalism—the Populist revolt of the 1890s—by installing and supporting politicians who would offset the firebrands challenging monopolies, securing the power of railroad corporations until well into the twentieth century.

Engines of Redemptions is deeply researched and makes significant contributions to southern history and the history of capitalism. Railroads have been a constant presence on the sidelines of many histories, but Huffard centers them and deepens our understanding of how these systems transformed lives and how southerners reacted to them. Huffard’s use of folktales and train songs as sources gives voice to those whose lives were changed in wrenching ways but have not been represented in past works. Huffard also moves beyond debates about how exploitative forms of labor squared with a capitalist ethos. By examining other features of capitalism, he concludes that the New South was not a capitalist “aberration, but . . . a function of untrammeled capitalism,” bringing needed attention to the destructive features embedded in the system (p. 5).

This excellent book will be the definitive account of New South railroads that pushes debates about capitalism in productive new directions. These contributions, combined with Huffard’s spirited narrative and the gripping new stories he...

审核人：

• 救赎的引擎：新南威尔士州的铁路与资本主义重建R. Scott Huffard Jr.
• 威廉·D·布莱恩

几十年来，学者们一直在利用南方来辩论资本主义的本质。小斯科特·霍法德（R. Scott Huffard）生动的《救赎的引擎：铁路与新南方的资本主义重建》以铁路为视角，探讨了资本主义在改造新南方方面的作用，为这一话题提供了新的视角。铁路使南方人与资本主义体系“可以想象到的最直接的接触”，同时也成为资本主义的有力象征，霍华德巧妙地表明，资本主义既是“经济体系，又是文化”（第2、5页）。

霍夫德通过展示铁路扩张如何影响其经济和文化方面，加深了我们对新南威尔士州的信条。铁路线突显了当地公司官员在重建该地区中的作用，同时部署了区域网络以证明南方已经与全国其他地区和解。这种和解在任何地方都比1886年对标准规格的更改更为明显，因为它反映了“如何从本质上看似严格意义上的经济决定会受到文化的影响”（第38页）。

铁路还支持白人助推器的种族愿景。黑人南方人寻求利用劳动力，流动性和消费者活动的新机会。然而，他们面临着白人官员刻板的危险定型观念，目的是阻止他们通过隔离和暴力来享受铁路的成果，同时在消除和修建铁路方面也扮演着自己的角色。

用霍夫的话来说，铁路公司没有像阿尔弗雷德·钱德勒（Alfred Chandler）所描述的那样，只是作为“混乱的代理人”来反映公司秩序（第7页）。这种混乱是资本主义的特征，而不是漏洞，“救赎的引擎”的核心章节集中在南方铁路的“幻影”（第2章）。

例如，当黄热病在1870年代在铁路走廊上蔓延时，它导致社区限制出行并实行隔离措施-霍华德（Huffard）将这一过程描述为“新南信条的颠倒版本”（第134页）。铁路沉船的频发暴露了资本主义的危险方面，但是铁路通过动员种族歧视的恐惧，驱使黑人破坏者在火车上捕食，从而怪罪责备并限制了他们的责任。甚至火车残骸的歌谣也赞扬了英雄人物，而忽略了造成残骸的区域性基础设施缺陷。火车抢劫犯，例如鲁伯·伯罗（Rube Burrow）和铁路法案[End Page 133]反资本家们对新秩序感到沮丧。通过利用流动性和铁路标准化来积累财富，他们还相信“资本主义被提炼成最纯粹和最暴力的形式”（第197页）。铁路官员还通过安置和支持政治人物来缓解铁路资本主义最有力的挑战（1890年代的民粹主义起义），这些政治人物将抵消挑战性垄断的火把，从而确保铁路公司的实力直到20世纪。

兑换引擎经过深入研究，为南方历史和资本主义历史做出了重要贡献。铁路一直是许多历史的边缘，但霍夫德将铁路置于中心，并加深了我们对这些系统如何改变生活以及南方人如何对它们做出反应的理解。霍华德以民间故事和火车歌作为来源，向那些以痛苦的方式改变了生活但在过去的作品中没有表现出来的人们发声。霍夫德还超越了关于劳动剥削形式如何与资本主义精神相适应的辩论。通过考察资本主义的其他特征，他得出结论，新南方不是资本主义的“畸变”，而是……。。。“不受约束的资本主义的功能”，需要引起注意的是系统中嵌入的破坏性特征（第5页）。

这本出色的书将成为《新南铁路》的权威著作，它将把有关资本主义的辩论朝着富有成效的新方向推进。这些贡献，再加上霍法德充满活力的叙事以及他引人入胜的新故事，...