The Way of Hilton: Esprit de Corps in the UK and the USA in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This chapter shows how and why English uses of the idiom ‘esprit de corps’ in the twentieth century were not only increasingly frequent, but also dominantly laudative. The English version of the phrase tended to forget the pejorative political meaning invented by the Philosophes in the eighteenth century. If esprit de corps continued to thrive in several discourses (military, political, intellectual and theoretical, corporate, sports...), it was with a meaning that was increasingly generic and standard, often close to the idea of team spirit with a bellicose and enthusiastic twist. American managerial discourse reinvented esprit de corps in the twentieth century as an anthem of what the author proposes to call regimental capitalism,an alternative to trade-unionism The chapter also narrates the case of Conrad Hilton, the founder of the international chain of hotels, who explicitly transplanted his experience of military esprit de corps in France during WWI into his philosophy and practice of management.