Rulers of Empire: The French Colonial Service in Africa by William B. Cohen (review)

110 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Rulerso[ Empire:The FrenchColonialServicein A[rica.wmLn•a B.½o•.•. Stanford, HooverInstitution Press, •97•. PP.xviii, 279 , maps, illus.$9.5 o. The newAfricanhistory, in itsconcern with Africanpeoples, hasleft to former colonialofficials andtheiradmirers thetaskof describing thehistoryof colonial administration. The Britishhavefilledseveral libraryshelves, butuntil thisbook, we havenot had a professional studyof the Frenchcolonialadministrator. WilliamCohen's book,originally a doctoral dissertation, isa studyof theCorps of ColonialAdministrators, which servedin Black Africa and Madagascar. Cohen's trainingisin Frenchhistory, notAfrican,andthestrength of thebook ishisabilityto setthe colonialadministrator into the historyof Frenchbureaucracy . Cohenis at his bestin discussing the establishment of an administration, problems of recruitment, and the development of theEcoleColoniale. He also provides dataon thesocial andgeographic origins of theadministrators during differentperiods and discusses theirvalues,the latterlargelyon the basis of a questionnaire Cohendistributed to livingformeradministrators. Cohenisfamiliarwith theliteratureonBritishadministration andmakes many comparisons, mostly to thedisadvantage of theFrench,whowereless selective in recruitment, stingier in education, andmoreirresponsible in theirwillingness to leavearbitrarypowerto unqualified men.Cohensees progress in termsof increasing selectivity in recruitment andimprovement in trainingmethods, both of whichbecameeffectivein the I93OS. At the sametime,he accepts the view of former administrators like Hubert Deschamps that this was a period of stagnation andbureaucratic immobilism. The failureto explainthiscontradiction isintimatelyrelatedto the book'sstrength. Cohenis a historianof France andhesees thecolonialadministration largelythroughitsowneyes. The history of thecolonialadministration canonlybeunderstood in termsof whatwasdone in Africa- andthisnecessitates a regionbyregiontypeofresearch whichhasnot yet beendone.When it is done,we will probablyseemore clearlythat the ideological formulations of Frenchcolonial theorists werepost-facto rationalizationsofwhatwasalreadybeingdone .We will alsohavea clearerpictureof the interplayof differentinterests, in particular,theself-interest of thebureaucracy itselfand the interests of plantersand commercial houses, and we will seehow stagnation resulted from the autocraticnatureof the regime. Cohen'sstudydoessuccessfully highlightessential differences betweenthe FrenchandtheBritish.Theselaynotsomuchin theirdirectness or indirectness, but in the socialoriginsof the administrators and in the differentnational approaches to localgovernment. Britishadministrators were eithergentryor assimilated gentryideals.The Frenchwere recruitedfrom the bourgeoisie increasingly over time, the upperbourgeoisie - and were hostileto inherited status. Similarly, theFrench werecentralizers andrationalizers While theBritish respected localvariationand activelyencouraged it. It is to be hopedthat we shallsoonhave similarstudies of Belgianand Portuguese administration. MARTIN A. KLEIN Universityof Toronto ...