France in the Age of Organization: Factory, Home, and Nation from the 1920s to Vichy by Jackie Clarke (review)

CLARKE, JACKIE. France in the Age of Organization: Factory, Home, and Nation from the 1920s to Vichy. New York: Berghahn, 2011. ISBN 978-0-85745-080-7. Pp. 218. $80. The title is in itself somewhat provocative. The “Age of Organization” is the type of descriptive label usually applied to the post-1945 Trente Glorieuses, which were characterized by rapid economic and demographic growth, as well as by sweeping social and political transformations: “Historians often think of the period after the Second World War as the key moment in the reorganization of social, economic, and political life in twentieth-century France” (2). By comparison, the interwar years are often presented as a period of generalized societal stasis and/ or crisis, leading up to the catastrophic military defeat of 1940. Jackie Clarke’s study aims to nuance this stark historical contrast between interwar regression and postwar renewal, in part by finding parallels and continuities between the levels of public influence attained by the interwar techniciens and by their postwar counterparts, the better-known cadres and technocrates who are generally associated with the deep structural changes of the Trente Glorieuses. The term technicien here encompasses a broad category of individuals and associations that were loosely linked by advanced professional training and the desire to bring more organizational efficiency to French society as a whole. Not just engineers and industrialists, but also economists, civil servants, trade unionists, social professionals , and “domestic science” specialists thus fit into this category. Many of these would-be reformers of French socioeconomic patterns were influenced by the managerial practices and movements derived from two main sources: Frederick Taylor’s “scientific management” and the less widely known concepts of administration and leadership formulated by Henri Fayol, whose Administration industrielle et générale was published in 1916. One of the merits of Clarke’s book is that it points out the enduring influence of Fayol’s work, which is often summarized by his five-point definition of the main managerial functions: “prévoir, organiser, commander, coordonner, contrôler” (also known by the POCCC acronym). France in the Age of Organization provides much biographical information on the techniciens of the interwar and Vichy periods, including an appendix with profiles of some of the most notable individuals. It highlights the ways in which concepts and procedures taken from industrial and public management were adapted for use at all levels of French society, including inside the home, with middle-class wives being called upon to become efficient “managers” of their presumably rationalized domestic space. The impetus to modernize the social as well as economic realms derived in large part from the perceived backwardness of a still disproportionately agricultural France trying to catch up with more industrialized and therefore more powerful competitors. In this sense, the techniciens of the 1920s and 1930s had the same broad objectives, if not necessarily the same level of success, as their postwar counterparts. Clarke’s book is meticulously researched and well written. There is a refreshingly low incidence of typographical errors: “principle” for “principal” (44); “Dirigsme” (132). By stressing certain organizational and conceptual continuities in French society throughout most of the twentieth century, France in the Age of Organization breaks new ground. One area of investigation does seem lacking: since one of the main goals of this study is to reconfigure the post-World War II period of rapid economic development as part of a historical continuum that stretches back at least to l’Entre-deux-guerres, rather than as a sudden, isolated, quasi-miraculous flowering of economic and social life in France, a critical engagement with the writings of the author who most convincingly conceptualized the Trente Glorieuses, Jean 966 FRENCH REVIEW 85.5 Fourastié, would have been called for. However, Fourastié is briefly mentioned only once (168). Western Washington University Edward Ousselin DELESSE, CATHERINE, et BERTRAND RICHET. Le coq gaulois à l’heure anglaise: analyse de la traduction anglaise d’Astérix. Arras: Artois PU, 2009. ISBN 978-2-84832-077-9. Pp. 447. 24 a. This book deserves a belated review because it presents a major research project on Astérix that deals with the difficult art of translating cultural humor. The authors compare thirty...