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The Suez canal and the growth of French capitalism

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  • Bonin, H.
(2010). The Suez Canal and the Growth of French Capitalism. History of the Suez Canal Company, 1858-2008 : Between Controversy and Utility (p. 25-32). Librairie Droz. https://shs.cairn.info/history-of-the-suez-canal-company-1858-2008--9782600013314-page-25?lang=en.

  • Bonin, Hubert.
« The Suez canal and the growth of French capitalism ». History of the Suez Canal Company, 1858-2008 Between Controversy and Utility, Librairie Droz, 2010. p.25-32. CAIRN.INFO, shs.cairn.info/history-of-the-suez-canal-company-1858-2008--9782600013314-page-25?lang=en.

  • BONIN, Hubert,
2010. The Suez canal and the growth of French capitalism. In : History of the Suez Canal Company, 1858-2008 Between Controversy and Utility. Genève : Librairie Droz. Publications d'histoire économique et sociale internationale, p.25-32. URL : https://shs.cairn.info/history-of-the-suez-canal-company-1858-2008--9782600013314-page-25?lang=en.

Notes

  • [1]
    Roland Caty, Éliane Richard & Pierre Échinard, Les patrons du Second Empire. Marseille, Paris-Le Mans, Picard-Cénomane, 1999. Xavier Daumalin & Olivier Raveux, “Marseille (1831-1865). Une révolution industrielle entre Europe du Nord et Méditerranée”, Annales Hss, January-February 2001, n°, pp. 153-176. Olivier Raveux, Marseille, ville des métaux et de la vapeur au XIXe siècle, Paris, Cnrs Éditions, 1998. Gérard Chastagnaret & Philippe Mioche (eds.), Histoire industrielle de la Provence, Aix-Marseille, Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1998. Louis Pierrein, Industries traditionnelles du port de Marseille. Le cycle des sucres et des oléagineux, 1870-1958, Marseille, 1975.
  • [2]
    David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change et Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, London, Cambridge University Press, 1967. Rondo Cameron, “L’esprit d’entreprise”, in La France et le développement économique de l’Europe, 1800-1914, Paris, Seuil, 1971 (Princeton, 1961).
  • [3]
    See Hélène Vérin, Entrepreneurs, entreprise. Histoire d’une idée, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1982. AFHE, Entreprises & entrepreneurs, XIXe-XIXe siècles, Paris, Presses de l’université de Paris-Sorbonne and AFHE, 1983. Patrick Verley, Entreprises et entrepreneurs du XVIIIe siècle au début du XXe siècle, Paris, Paris, Hachette, 1994. Mark Casson, “Entrepreneurship and business culture”, in Jonathan Brown & Mary B. Rose (eds.), Entrepreneurship, Networks, and Modern Business, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1993, pp. 34-50.
  • [4]
    Norbert Élias, La dynamique de l’Occident, 1976. Fernand Braudel, La dynamique du capitalisme, Paris, Flammarion, 1975. Patrick Verley, L’échelle du monde. Essai sur l’industrialisation de l’Occident, Paris, Gallimard, 1997.
  • [5]
    John McCusker (et alii, eds.), History of World Trade since 1450, Farmington Hills, Thomson-Gale, 2006 (two volumes).
  • [6]
    Ronald-Max Hartwell, “The service revolution: The growth of services in modern economy”, in Carlo Cipolla (ed.), The Industrial Revolution, 1700-1914, Glasgow, Hassocks, 1986.
  • [7]
    François Crouzet, The First Industrialists. The Problem of Origins, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985. Pierre Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot, Paris, Gallimard, 1985. Jean Vial, L’industrialisation de la sidérurgie française, 1814-1864, Paris-La Haye, Mouton, 1967. Charles Morazé, Les bourgeois conquérants à la conquête du monde, 1842-1890, Paris, Armand Colin, 1957; reedition, Brussels, Complexe, 1985.
  • [8]
    François Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer en France, volume 1, 1740-1883, Paris, Fayard, 1997 et 2005. François Caron, Histoire de l’exploitation d’un grand réseau. La Compagnie du chemin de fer du Nord, 1846-1937, Paris, Mouton, 1973. Patrick Karl O’Brien, Railways and the Economic Development of Western Europe, 1830-1914, New York, Saint-Martin Press, 1983.
  • [9]
    David Armine Howarth, Stephen Horwarth & John Haskell Kemble, The Story of P & O: The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986.
  • [10]
    Maurice Lévy-Leboyer & François Bourguignon, L’économie française au XIXe siècle. Analyse macro-économique, Économica, 1985. Yves Breton, Albert Broder & Michel Lutfalla (eds.), La longue stagnation en France. L’autre grande dépression, 1873-1897, Paris, Économica, 1997.
  • [11]
    J. -C. Asselain himself used: Jean-Claude Toutain, “Le produit intérieur brut de la France, 1789-1990”, Économies et sociétés, 1997,, pp. 30-57. And: Maurice Lévy-Leboyer & François Bourguignon, L’économie française au XIXe siècle. Analyse macroéconomique, Paris, Économica, 1985, pp. 328-337.
  • [12]
    Hubert Bonin, “Le Comptoir national d’escompte de Paris, une banque impériale (1848-1940)”, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, tome 78, 1991, n° 293, pp. 477-497.
  • [13]
    Even macro-economist historian J. -C. Asselain dared shaping these 1850s when he enhanced the resiliency and intensity of growth during the decade: Jean-Charles Asselain, “1850-1960: l’illusion de la puissance”, in Florence Bourillon, Philippe Boutry, André Encrevé & Béatrice Touchelay (eds.), Des économies et des hommes. Mélanges offerts à Albert Broder, Paris, Bière, 2006, pp. 139-156.
  • [14]
    Marie-France Berneron-Couvenhes, Les Messageries maritimes. L’essor d’une grande compagnie de navigation française, 1851-1894, Paris, Pups-Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2007.
  • [15]
    See David Todd, “The second global empire: Michel Chevalier and the French ‘imperialism of free trade’“, in Pierre Singaravelou (et alii, eds.), The Internationalisation of the History of France, 1750-2000, Paris, to be published.
  • [16]
    See Hubert Bonin, “A short history of entrepreneurship in France (from 1780 up today)”, in Youssef Cassis & Ioanna Pepelasi Minoglou (dir.), Country Studies in Entrepreneurship. A Historical Perspective, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 65-97. Emmanuel Chadeau, L’économie du risque: les entrepreneurs, 1850-1980, Paris, Olivier Orban, 1988.
  • [17]
    See Hubert Bonin, “Les vertus de l’économie ouverte?”, in Bertrand Blancheton & Hubert Bonin (eds.), La croissance en économie ouverte (XVIIIe-XXIe siècles). Hommages à Jean-Charles Asselain, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 2009, pp. 13-42.

This part will tackle the issue of “Progress” because the meeting of a country (Egypt), a territory (the Suez isthmus), techniques and engineering, and one man (Lesseps) led to some kind of a “revolution” which eased considerably worldwide transportation and achieved a dream which had been entertained since ancient times. The issue of the mid-century was expansion, progress, growth, industrial revolution, railway revolution, shipping revolution. Several actors struggled to insert the Near East into the tide of western progress, in particular in Egypt or the Levant (present Lebanon). The Mediterranean area was raised as a challenged to set up an intense connexion of shipping lines where harbours competed into modernisation (Barcelona, Genoa, Marseille, then the new Greek ones), all converging somehow to Alexandria or to Constantinople. The French Mediterranean façade fought to be interconnected to fresh industrialised regions, around Lyon and Saint-Étienne, Paris or the northern mining, textile and metal-working platforms: in Marseille, Sète (or Cette) and a few little ports (La Ciotat, La Seyne, etc.), bankers, traders and industrialists shaped islands of industrialisation, for instance for shipyards, steammachines, food-stuff. On a broader scope, France itself gathered momentum to resist British hegemony, and joined Belgium, Catalonia or the Ruhr to determine some margin of manoeuver against British industrial firms and traders. Last, Europe emerged as thoroughly evolving from an agrarian type of economy towards urbanisation…


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