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Book ReviewsKatrina Honeyman aa University of LeedsPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Katrina Honeyman (2000) Book Reviews, Business History,42:1, 115-116, DOI: 10.1080/00076790000000185

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00076790000000185

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B O O K REVIEWS 115

book is a very good reason why one should look beyond the obvious short-term implications andrelationships, and place events in the longer time-frame.

Admittedly shortages can be brief, but extreme, and yes they do identify failures of markets to solve supply shortages - regulated or free markets alike. And yes, occasionally those shortages and market failures are so severe that they bring forth extreme measures - by the people in their resort to the moral economy, and by the administration in their resort to various levels of authority, from the purely regulatory to the ultimate sanction of the armed forces, the militia or army. But between these extremes the mechanisms of supply do seem to work. There were subsistence crises, but Malthusian outcomes were generally held at bay. This book is as much about the success in changing the mechanisms controlling the supply system as it is concerned with their failure always to relieve shortages. These mechanisms were literally the local market administrations as well as larger national questions regarding free trade or interventionist regulation. En route the reader is treated to a very detailed account of local administration through detailed archival inquiry, as well as more general arguments set at the national level. At this larger level the story explores the views of the innocent free traders who felt that intervention turned merchants and others away from the grain trade, to the calculating free traders, the Physiocrats, whose proposals provided all the incentives necessary for maximising profits, from which the state could then extract its share of the rent from land in the form of a single tax on landed property. At the detailed level the story uncovers both the national and local regulatory frameworks. The canvas on which this history is painted is France from the Old Regime through to the Second Empire, and the local detail is supplied from that 'V'- shaped territory in the north from Dieppe to the Normandy coast, with the Seine valley downstream of Paris running through its heart. Therefore it captures the two big and rival urban markets of Rouen and Paris.

This study is about both history and economics, the former provides the background, the events and the detail, and the latter the institutional frameworks. The two extremes in the historical events are the crises of 1709 and 1853, and these also provide the two extremes in terms of institutional response. This is no less than a reformulation of the French state on a theme of subsistence, from the 'confusion and impotence of the state in 1709' to 'its marked confidence and effectiveness in 1853' (p.8). In the first, the state, effectively as provider of last resort, was slow to react, conciliatory at times and basically lacking in aims and well-defined objectives, but in 1853 their aims were well defined in terms of urban, and particularly Parisian, bread prices. The first crisis was about food supply, the second was as much about politics. By 1853 the state had learnt that its stability depended on grain.

University of Hull MICHAEL TURNER

ROBERT FOX and ANTHONY TUCKER (eds.), Luxury Trades and Consumerism in Ancien Regime Paris: Studies in the History of the Skilled Labour Force (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. Pp.xviii + 307. ISBN 0 86078 664 1, £49.50).

The French economy has often been suspected of over-indulging in the production and consumption of luxuries, to its long-term disadvantage. The research in this collection, however, reveals a vibrant pre-industrial business community in Paris, where small- scale production of diverse articles achieved economies of scope if not of scale. A modern commercial world of innovative marketing and production activities clearly

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1 16 B U S I N E S S HISTORY

existed alongside more traditional pursuits. The theme of luxury - and its implications for developments in skilled labour and in consumption - has been largely overlooked by business historians, but this volume suggests both the potential of examining such a field and the extent of the work that remains undone. The purpose of Fox and Tucker's edited volume - the outcome of two conferences organised by the Achievement Project - is to indicate new approaches to the understanding of the complex nature of the early modem Parisian economy and society. The material is organised around the themes of production, distribution and consumption and the work concludes, helpfully, with the reflections of such eminencies as Joan Thirsk and Francois Crouzet.

Bookbinding, clearly an important luxury trade before industrialisation, was stimulated both by the growing popularity of libraries during the seventeenth century and by the skills and productive techniques developed by Italians. Chapters by Le Bars on the early sixteenth century and Barber on the eighteenth century reveal the significance of design and the international market in specialist bookbinding. The immigrant influence on the luxury trades so often identified by historians has probably been exaggerated. Bimbenet-Privat's chapter on sixteenth-century Flemish goldsmiths in Paris shows that, because of the bamers imposed by indigenous guilds, such immigrants rarely attained acceptance as masters and their work was severely circumscribed. The distinctive mathematical instrument trade, usefully analysed by Anthony Turner, produced diverse articles and combined the skills of different trades. Such division of labour and the collaboration of skills were features of the production and distribution of many Parisian ancien regime luxury items and are highlighted, for example, in Augarde's and Sargentson's work on the furniture trade and in Roche's analysis of fashion in clothing.

Fashion may have sustained the growth in the trade in luxury goods and Sonenscher attempts to convey the importance of product innovation and market creativity in eighteenth-century European expansion. Novelty and fashion were not always sought by consumers, however, and Ellis' analysis of the movement of people and products between Paris and Lyon in the making and selling of patterned silk uncovers the reactive rather than creative nature of much design. It also identifies the interactive role of consumers, merchants and makers in the evolution of luxuries. Innovation constitutes a recurring theme within this collection. Innovative use of materials and in finishing is reflected in Sargentson's analysis of the work of specialist traders. An example of marketing innovation is provided by Augarde's study of the cabinet maker Noel Gerard, who was responsible for the success of the Magasin General, a store which sold the products of a variety of merchants on a commission basis.

Despite its extensive coverage, this work omits several crucial issues. The neglect of the luxury-based royal manufactories is noted by Lewis, who also identifies the absence of any mention of commercial failure, a shortcoming with which business historians are familiar. Despite the title, the role of skilled labour does not appear to be central in this collection. It would be churlish to dwell on such limitations, however, for this is a work of innovation and creativity like many of its subjects. It sets an agenda for future research. Further exploration of the complex process of consumption as highlighted in this volume, for example, and the operation of credit networks in the early industrial luxury trades, could be profitable to business historians.

University of Leeds KATRINA HONEYMAN

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