La France des électriciens 1880–1980 ed. by Fabienne Cardot

Abstract

160 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE dustrial establishments, and even to some extent (like the technical services of the navy) in the public and military spheres dominated by the state engineers from the elite grandes écoles. According to Day, not only were they good practical engineers, workhorses of the French Industrial Revolution, responsible for early French successes in the automobile and aeronautical industries as well as the splendid effort of industrial mobilization during World War I, they also did well for themselves, rising relatively rapidly on the social and economic ladder from their lower-class origins. Indeed, their growing professional prestige and social mobility, as much as the in­ creasing complexity of the curriculum to keep pace with an ever more scientific technology, powered the inevitable evolution of the schools toward their apotheosis in 1974 as a bona fide grande école just a notch below polytechnique. In discussing 19th-century France, it will henceforth be more dif­ ficult to speak of industrial backwardness, of social immobility (at least for that small part of the labor aristocracy that went to the écoles d’arts et métiers), and shortage of practical talent, or to restrict one’s definition of engineer to graduates of the Ecole Polytechnique. Janis Langins 1)r. Langins is currently at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of l.a République avail besoin de savants, a history of the first vear of operation of the Ecole Polytechnique. La France des électriciens 1880—1980. Edited by Fabienne Cardot. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986. Pp. 464; illustrations, tables, notes. F 180.00 (paper). The front matter in La France des électriciens 1880—1980 leads one to believe it to be the first volume of substantive research presented by l’Association pour l’Histoire de l’Électricité en France. Some of the articles are of high scholarly quality, but most reflect the association’s wish to curry support groups. In Science in Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), Bruno Latour suggests that the social process of research in­ volves mobilizing social networks as well as evidence. Thus, in ritual fashion, this work elicits the support of powerful individuals from Électricité de France (EDF, the funding agent for the association), the Inspectorate of Finance, the Ministry of Industry, and the electrical lighting trade association—even the philatelists supported by EDF workers—as well as academics. Given this agenda, it is no surprise that reportage is the most common framework. Nonetheless, some discussions go beyond the “marvelous discovery” and heroic invention frame and offer considerable insight for historians of technology. The first section addresses the tasks faced by early system builders. Articles by Michel Banal and Dominique Barjot on dams at Kembs TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 161 and Génissiat show how these artifacts were adjusted to satisfy polit­ ical, economic, financial, and symbolic criteria. In the first systematic study of a French private utility, Henri Morsel’s article on the Société Générale de Force et Lumière serves to nuance Thomas P. Hughes’s model of system builders (in Networks of Power, Baltimore, 1983) by showing how ostensibly irrational factors (territory battles, devalua­ tions, nationalism, etc.) affected the construction of one of France’s largest private utilities. Morsel’s work uses the recently accessible ar­ chives of prenationalization utilities, and he reveals how bankers, min­ ing firms, ferrous and alloy metals firms, and chemical companies shaped the utility agenda. Alain Beltran performs a similar task on Nord-Lumière, and extends the analysis to positional battles for ser­ vice areas and tariff wars against gas firms. The section concerning uses of electricity promises far more than it delivers, for it circumvents any discussion of manufacturing tech­ nology or home appliances. Albert Broder’s article on foreign trade in electrical equipment documents well-recognized causes for French failures in this arena: suboptimal national markets, domination by foreign patent holders, and high prices. Nonetheless, he seems un­ aware of literature on successful sectors such as high-tension equip­ ment, where French firms provided global leadership. He also avoids addressing the long-standing debate over the more...