First published in 1979, this richly documented study of French development from the early nineteenth century to the present day is of particular importance to students both of history and economics.

Francis Caron moves as confidently through the fields of current economic policy and modern economics as he does through the traditional subject matter of French nineteenth-century economic history.

His book incorporates the mass of research that has appeared in monograph and periodical form in recent years, making it accessible for the first time to the English-speaking reader.