Review
Product Description
In The Path Not Taken, Jeff Horn argues that--contrary to standard,
Anglocentric accounts--French industrialization was not a failed imitation of the
laissez-faire British model but the product of a distinctive industrial policy that
led, over the long term, to prosperity comparable to Britain's. Despite the
upheavals of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, France developed and maintained
its own industrial strengths. France was then able to take full advantage of the new
technologies and industries that emerged in the "second industrial revolution," and
by the end of the nineteenth century some of France's industries were outperforming
Britain's handily. The Path Not Taken shows that the foundations of this success
were laid during the first industrial revolution.Horn posits that the French state's
early attempt to emulate Britain's style of industrial development foundered because
of revolutionary politics. The "threat from below" made it impossible for the state
or entrepreneurs to control and exploit laborers in the British manner. The French
used different means to manage labor unruliness and encourage innovation and
entrepreneurialism. Technology is at the heart of Horn's analysis, and he shows that
France, unlike England, often preferred still-profitable older methods of production
in order to maintain employment and forestall revolution. Horn examines the
institutional framework established by Napoleon's most important Minister of the
Interior, Jean-Antoine Chaptal. He focuses on textiles, chemicals, and steel, looks
at how these new institutions created a new industrial environment. Horn's
illuminating comparison of French and British industrialization should stir debate
among historians, economists, and political scientists.
