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  • Des barrages, des usines, et des hommes: L’industrialisation des Alpes du Nord entre ressources locales et apports extérieurs
  • Alain Beltran (bio)
Des barrages, des usines, et des hommes: L’industrialisation des Alpes du Nord entre ressources locales et apports extérieurs. Edited by Hervé Joly et al.Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2002. Pp. 386.

This book is dedicated to Henri Morsel of the University of Lyon, the eminent author and editor of the three-volume Histoire générale de l'électricité en France(1994-96). World War II changed Morsel's life because he was a Jew. During the summer of 1943, he was hidden from the Nazis and French collaborators by the people of a small city that had a long tradition of protecting refugees (often Protestant), le Chambon sur Lignon. At the end of [End Page 879]the war, Morsel sought to learn history in order to understand the tragic events of 1939-1945. But economic history rapidly seduced the young scholar, especially through the influence of Pierre Léon.

Des barrages, des usines, et des hommes(Dams, plants, and men) focuses on the Grenoble area, mainly electrical developments. Actually, the book's heros are the French Alps, along with watchmaking, railways, chemistry, electrometallurgy, civil engineering works, businessmen, bankers, and workers. It is obvious that French capitalism was largely born in this region, full of energy resources but also full of an entrepreneurial spirit. Because a selection of essays is to some extent arbitrary, and the reading of a book such as this therefore a matter of personal enthusiasms, I would simply note here some of the essays with a more general approach: Hervé Joly on the origins of electrochemical and electrometallurgical firms; Ludovic Cailluet on managerial hierarchies in the Pechiney company (is Alfred Chandler's analysis relevant for the development of industry in the French Alps between 1880 and 1960?); and Hubert Bonin on Grenoble's bankers.

Even in a microeconomic landscape there are interesting historical lessons for readers who know a little about the development of industrial France and how it contrasts with the United Kingdom and Germany. In this book, however, international perspectives are missing, except for Pierre Lanthier's essay contrasting the French Alps and Mauricie, in Québec. It would have been interesting for some of the authors to have looked at regions in the German, Austrian, or Italian Alps or, staying in France, at other mountainous areas such as the Pyrénées and Massif Central. Was the success of industry in northern Alpine valleys due to transport facilities? During the 1960s, Grenoble was described as the most dynamic city in France, but is this still true today? The ready availability of energy no longer proves an explanation for the siting of industries.

Perhaps what this book needed was a conclusion by Henri Morsel himself, or by the editors, who are Morsel's students. We know about the economic takeoff of this region, but then what happened? Its history did not end with the 1960s. That said, this is a book that exemplifies France's rich contributions to economic and technological history, and provides a stimulating overview of the way French historians work. It is also an invitation to make comparisons with other lands having a long industrial tradition.

Alain Beltran

Dr. Beltran, directeur de recherche in the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (C.N.R.S.), specializes in the study of energy and utilities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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