L’Invention de l’ingénieur moderne: L’École des Ponts et Chaussées, 1747–1851 by Antoine Picon

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 181 perpetuates a tradition of civil engineering histories written by engi­ neers or closely based on their accounts. While the engineer’s viewpoint can provide insight into design and construction, the mindset and concerns of engineers often vary from those of historians as well as most of the general public. For those who seek to go beyond the bounds of the historiographic tradition that Marrey chose, Les ponts modemes will appear somewhat lacking. It avoids thematic interpretation and passes over scholarship in the history of engineering. While it covers 200 years in 300 pages, no explicit questions tie the book together. Chapter organization is ran­ dom: bridges are grouped according to geography, material, type, and supposed historical epochs; the overall organization is chronological. Marrey does not clarify the agenda that leads him to reject recent synthesis while citing primary materials. Most or all of the book originally appeared as a series of articles, and these have not been well accomodated to book form. This compendium nevertheless has much to recommend it. There is a lot of information here; in a field as underresearched as the history of modern civil engineering, a book of this type will automatically become a source for those who need to identify the major engineers, entrepre­ neurs, and works. And Les ponts modemes contains many entertaining stories. Moreover, Marrey often emphasizes neglected aspects of civil engineering. He pays particular attention to the complexities of the building process. He even brings up the treatment of workers (p. 192). Though he often quotes fromjust one or two sources, a practice that will not satisfy historians, historians are not his intended audience. Les ponts modemes is typical of many civil engineering histories; it delivers a series of accounts and illustrations to a reader with an abiding interest in the subject. As Marrey had so much source material within his grasp, however, it is a pity that he did not try to reach out to a wider readership. The book may not attract readers of Technology and Culture who steer clear of “bridge books,” but it will satisfy the bridge fanciers for whom it was intended. Gregory K. Dreicer Dr. Dreicer is a curator at the National Building Museum. His research concerns intercultural exchange and the history of civil engineering. L’Invention de l’ingénieur moderne: L’École des Ponts et Chaussées, 1747-1851. By Antoine Picon. Paris: Presses de l’Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 1992. Pp. 768; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. F 380.00 (paper). The Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées (literally School of Bridges and Roads), well known to historians of engineering as the oldest engineer­ ing school in France, is still one of the most prestigious of the French system of grandes écoles from which much of France’s technocratic elite is 182 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE recruited. Predictably, therefore, it has been the subject of quasihagiographical studies by graduates and has also received the attention of historians of administration. Antoine Picon, however, a historian who is himself a graduate of the school as well as an architect, has produced something considerably more than a narrow institutional history. This fine book, a major event in the historiography of engineering that should be translated quickly into English, attempts nothing less than using the history ofthe school to study the history of “technical rationality.” This makes Picon’s history more than just a case study of purely national interest, for it raises questions and suggests answers that are fundamental in the understanding of modem engineering everywhere. From the rich archives of the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, the author has drawn not merely valuable information on curriculum and organi­ zation but also the student essays he exploited so well as a mirror of the ideology of the school in earlier work. The same archives provide many of the book’s numerous and beautiful illustrations of design drawings, cartography, and architectural projects that give a real sense of students’ work. Picon has used them skillfully to establish his theses. His finely textured analysis of technical rationality is developed from the attentive study of the lines...