------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW -------------- 
Published by EH.NET (January 2005) 
 
Dominique Barjot, Eric Anceau, Isabelle Lescent-Giles and Bruno  
Marnot, editors, _Les entrepreneurs du Second Empire_. Paris: Presses  
de l'universite de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003. 224 pp. 23.75 Euros, ISBN:  
2-84050-293-3. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Jean-Pierre Dormois, Institut d'Histoire  
Contemporaine, Universit=E9 Marc-Bloch (Strasbourg) 
 
 
This book is an interim report on a nation-wide project initiated  
some twenty years ago; it offers summary findings from a collection  
of twelve already published volumes with another half dozen announced  
for the near future. Its avowed ambition is to match the _British  
Dictionary of Business Biography_ (David Jeremy editor, 1984). This  
particular volume (224 pp.), divided in four sections and thirteen  
chapters, is the outcome of a one-day conference in Paris in 1999  
where participants in the project presented their results and/or  
prospects for forthcoming research. At the end, a formal conclusion  
by Fran=E7ois Crouzet highlights a number of striking similarities  
between nineteenth-century French and British entrepreneurs and an  
alphabetical index lists the 770 individuals so far assembled in the  
sample. The research strategy has consisted in building a random  
sample of leading businessmen by regions in the period 1850-1870 and  
collecting information on their lives and achievements from a variety  
of sources (a sample questionnaire is provided). 
 
As the authors admit, difficulties in collecting information were so  
great that a rigorous selection process was not feasible but one may  
consider, ex post, that the common lower bound is around the  
half-million francs mark -- the drawback for historians of the  
absence of a personal income tax is here again glaring. Questions  
arise, however, as to the choice of the term "entrepreneurs"  
(especially in its English meaning) in the title for describing the  
main activity of the people collected in the sample. It was obviously  
intended to emphasize the 'Promethean' dimension of the calling and  
the introduction opens with a 'classic' attack on David Landes's  
celebrated 1949 article -- a shibboleth among French business  
historians.[1] But it is by no means obvious that the portrait  
gallery assembled here presents the quintessence of  
'entrepreneurship.' The project aims to reevaluate the role of what  
was known in the 1960s-1970s under the infamous term of 'patronat'  
with a view to convey the exploitative nature of industrial  
capitalism. Here instead the 'wealth creation' dimension is  
emphasized. But the sample also includes a sizeable share of assorted  
businessmen or speculators (2.6%), and bankers, stock-exchange and  
insurance brokers (14.5%), as well as wholesale traders (17.7%)  
making up together a hefty 34.8%. Is this a reflection of the  
heavy-handed 'pro-big business' stance of the Second Empire and  
Napoleon III's acquaintance with sometime dubious business  
personalities, or of the domination of money interests over the  
production system, as some republican opponents claimed at the time?  
Paradoxically, the old (?) Marxist term of 'capitalists' would have  
been more appropriate, especially if one considers the inclusion in  
the roster of large landowners (3%) -- particularly prevalent in  
areas such as Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Nord. 
 
The authors concur that the intermingling of business and politics  
remained a marginal phenomenon. They note that businessmen's  
involvement in politics generally stopped at accepting the local  
mayorship. Little more than 5% pursued a career in national politics  
as members of the legislature, mostly with an endorsement by the  
imperial government. However, the mention that some, typically  
Parisian, 'money-spinners' started their careers as civil servants  
hints at political connections playing an important role in business  
creation. The distribution of the sampled individuals by sectors of  
activity (Table 1), when restricted to industry and transport, comes  
out as closely related to that of value added (column 3 of Table 1)  
-- an observation which plays in favor of the sample's  
representativeness. Only metallurgy, mining and transport appear  
underrepresented but, as the authors warn, these are industries where  
the prevalence of joint stock companies (known in French as  
'anonymous societies') implied fragmented (and opaque) ownership: the  
sample is therefore skewed towards partnerships. At the other end of  
the spectrum, it left out the vast majority of small family firms  
(SME), which made up the backbone of French business in the  
nineteenth century. Thus, among the silk-manufacturers of Lyons, only  
19 out of an estimated total of 400 industrialists are represented. 
 
Table 1 can be found at http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/0888.shtml#tabl= 
e1 
 
Self-made men appear to have been a rarity, at least among the very  
successful, about half the proportion in Britain.[3] Conversely,  
dynasties found it hard to take root. While 56 business families have  
two entries or more (typically the founder and his son), only in  
Alsace (and perhaps in the Nord), as N. Stoskopf and M Hau have  
already shown, are they conspicuous; two out of the three families  
with four representatives originated in the province lost in 1871.  
The bulk of comments is devoted to examining the geographical and  
educational background, the demographic and family behavior, the  
religious and political affiliation, as well as the artistic and  
cultural proclivities of the sampled individuals. As a result, the  
study leans heavily towards social history and flirts sometimes with  
the anecdotal: this self-professed 'essay in prosopography' (the  
systematic collection of biographical evidence used by archeologists  
and students of ancient history) does not always confront the crucial  
issues of business management. As a result this approach will leave  
many economic historians unsatisfied: ultimately, studying  
businessmen without their firm(s) may offer glimpses on their  
mentalities but little prospect of understanding their contribution  
to industrial development -- a little like visiting the homes of  
famous writers and musicians. Despite all the authors' precautions,  
the identikit picture which emerges from this gallery reinforces the  
pervasiveness of the conservative, risk-averse money makers reluctant  
to invest in new technologies, only desperate to join the  
upper-classes. And incidentally, the reader may have reservations  
about the obligation under which historians should feel to defend  
their national heritage. 
 
Notes: 
 
1. Landes's own 1963 revision of his earlier conclusions which is  
assigned in the introduction to _The Unbound Prometheus_ appeared in  
"New Model Entrepreneurship in France," _Explorations in Economic  
History_ 1: 56-75. 
 
2. As taken from Statistique G=E9n=E9rale de la France, _Enqu=EAte  
industrielle, 1861-65_ (Paris, 1873). 
 
3. James Foreman-Peck and Elisa Boccaletti, _French and British  
Businessmen in the Nineteenth Century_ (forthcoming). 
 
 
Jean-Pierre Dormois is author of _The French Economy in the Twentieth  
Century (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 
 
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