The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830 (review)

This book presents a well-documented but selective account of how a succession of French governments from the late Ancien Regime (1780s) to the Bourbon Restoration (1815–1830) attempted to promote domestic industry. Although the book contains some discussion of iron, steel, and the arms industry, its focus is mainly on the textile industry and how it was affected by the vicissitudes of trade policy and by the battles over control of workers and the workplace.

Horn consistently argues that France's path to industrialization differed from Britain's, but exactly how it differed seems to change as the book progresses. At the outset, Horn strongly endorses O'Brien and Keyder's thesis that the key difference between the two lay in France's commitment to small-scale artisanal production.¹ But later Horn concedes (rightly) that by the 1830s large-scale mechanized production had become the order of the day in France as well as in Britain (at least in textiles), leaving the book to focus on how events from 1789 to 1815 delayed, but did not prevent, France following Britain's lead. Hence, "the path not taken" refers not so much to a different kind of industrialization as to a different institutional framework for industrialization. Indeed, Horn's signal contribution is to show how, amid the upheavals of the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, the French worked out a unique blend of laissez-faire and statist policies to promote industrialization. Horn dubs this blend "Chaptalian" for the role that Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Napoleon's minister of the interior from 1800 to 1804, played in formulating it.

The most original and controversial sections of the book deal with the role of labor militancy in determining industrial policy in France. Horn provocatively argues that the main reason that France did not adopt the "liberal" industrial policies of the British was the power of French workers and the fear of worker revolt in the aftermath of the Revolution. Apparently, British industrialists could count on the "weak" British state to keep workers in their place, but French industrialists could not similarly count on the "strong" French state. Not everyone will find this explanation convincing.

Methodologically, this is very much a historian's book. In addition to a wide range of secondary sources, Horn draws heavily on materials in various French archives, especially reports and memoranda by government officials. The emphasis throughout is on qualitative rather than quantitative evidence. Although the metaphor of a path of development is at the heart of the book, Horn makes little explicit reference to, or discussion of, path-dependency theory. Theoretically and quantitatively oriented economic historians may find this absence troubling. However, the exposition is clear and free of social-science jargon. In the end, the book makes a positive contribution to the comparative study of French and British industrialization. It will serve, in the words of the liner notes, to "stir debate among historians, economists, and political scientists."