Wood-based Businesses and the Economic Development of Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries – An Introduction

This introduction sketches out what relevance wood and wood products have had in Europe’s industrial societies. It also summarizes some peculiarities of the wood-based businesses caused by both the materiality of wood and the ecologies of forests. Most importantly, the introduction contextualizes the findings of this issue’s individual articles in three topical fields, cutting some interpretational paths in an area still rather unknown to many historians: First of all, it argues that analysing wood-based businesses can help to re-consider the history of Europe’s industrialization as a distinctively continental process. Second, the introduction reveals material and ecological barriers to globalization that come into view if one questions the supplies of Europe’s ever increasing industrial wood demand. Third, it considers how a focus on the wood-based businesses can contribute to re-evaluate seemingly clear-cut divisions of Europe into industrial centres and peripheries.