In The Making of Capitalism in France, Xavier Lafrance offers the first thorough analysis of the origins of French capitalism, understood as distinct type of historical society and implying a new mode of class exploitation.

Historians, since the 1960s, argue that the French economy performed as well as did any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, especially the large consumer market in Paris. Whatever economic weaknesses existed did not stem from the social structure but from exogenous forces such as wars, the lack of natural resources or slow demographic growth. This book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals because of noncapitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the market’s competitive imperatives. Thus, distinctive features of capitalism—primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits—did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals.

"Using the example of the aircraft industry, which takes him like an arrow to the heart of many of the key conflicts in French life between 1936 and 1948, Herrick Chapman has written a penetrating and exceptionally well documented account of the way that France developed her present style of industrial relations, in which the state plays such a central role. No book I know so successfully integrates the history of aviation . . . with the political and social history of France. Both thorough and thoughtful, it is an impressive achievement."--Robert Wohl, University of California, Los Angeles "An unusual, innovative book based on impressive research that throws new light in a major way on twentieth-century French politics and society . . . one of the most interesting and original monographs in modern French history in a long time."--Robert O. Paxton, Columbia University "This is a breakthrough of considerable importance. [Chapman] will become the leading North American, perhaps even English-speaking, historian of contemporary France."--George Ross, Brandeis University

"William H. Sewell, Jr. turns to the experience of commercial capitalism to show how the commodity form abstracted social relations. The increased independence, flexibility, and anonymity of market relations made equality between citizens not only conceivable but attractive. Commercial capitalism thus found its way into the interstices of this otherwise rigidly hierarchical society, coloring social relations and paving the way for the establishment of civic equality"--

"Historians, since the 1960s, argue that the French economy performed as well as did any economy in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thanks to the opportunities for profit available on the market, especially the large consumer market in Paris. Whatever economic weaknesses existed did not stem from the social structure but from exogenous forces such as wars, the lack of natural resources, or slow demographic growth. This book challenges the foregoing consensus by showing that the French economy performed poorly relative to its rivals because of non-capitalist social relations. Specifically, peasants and artisans controlled the lands and workshops in autonomous communities and did not have to improve labor productivity to survive. Merchants and manufacturers cornered markets instead of being subject to the market's competitive imperatives. These distinctive features of capitalism, primitive accumulation (the dispossession of peasants and artisans) and the competitive obligation faced by merchants and manufacturers to reinvest profits in order to keep the profits, did not prevail until the state imposed them in a process lasting for a century after the 1850s. For this reason, it was not until the 1960s that France caught up to (and in some cases surpassed) its economic rivals"--

This book analyses the changes that took place in the French political economy since the 1980s. It links the question of the economic institutions that characterize the French variety of capitalism to the search for a socio-political equilibrium.

Neoliberalism and deregulation have come to dominate national and international political economy. This major book addresses this convergence and analyzes the implications for the future of capitalist diversity. It considers important questions such as: Is the preference for free markets a well-founded response to intensified global competition? Does this mean that all advanced societies must all converge on an imitation of the United States? What are the implications for the institutional diversity of the advanced economies? Political Economy of Modern Capitalism provides a practical and informed analysis of the public policy choices facing governments and business around the world.

Class and State in Early Modern France explores the economic, social, ideological and political foundations of French Absolutism. David Parker's challenging interpretation presents French Absolutism as a remarkably successful attempt to preserve the political and ideological structures of the traditional order. This reassessment runs contrary to much revisionist historiography, rejecting the widespread tendency to treat French Absolutism either as an instrument of capitalism or political modernisation. It also discusses a number of contentious issues such as the agrarian foundations of capitalism, the relationship between class and status, as well as the structure and ideology of the absolute state itself. It will be of interest to early modern historians of France, Britain and Europe.