For generations, the uneasy relationship between Britain and France has captured the popular and scholarly imagination. Comparative studies between the two countries abound, from political systems to eating habits: so far they have not extended to business history.
There is now growing interest in comparative business systems, practices, and performance. In these areas comparison with America, Germany, or Japan have taken precedence. This volume, with contributions from leading British and French experts, explores comparative developments and trends in the two countries which for so long were the guiding lights of Europe and the world. In particular it looks at three main dimensions - the family firm; education and training; and mergers and company structure.
With a mixture of case-studies, sectoral analysis, and wider-ranging comparison, the book will be a useful addition to an understanding of the evolution of business organization, competitiveness, and performance.

Britain's role in the mid-nineteenth century as the world's greatest economic power was an extraordinary phenomenon, foreshadowed in the Industrial Revolution of the century before and originating from a unique combination of global and indigenous factors. In this study Francois Crouzet analyses the growth and - in late Victorian Britain - decline of the nation's economy, drawing on an immense amount of quantitative data to examine and explain its development. The book begins with a macroeconomic survey of the period, reviewing broad fluctuations in economic growth and the question of the 'mid-Victorian boom', structural changes in the balance of the economy, demographic movements, capital formation and the influence of Free Trade. Professor Crouzet then goes on to look in detail at the different sectors of the economy, assessing the effects of the relative decline of agriculture against industry, the growth of the tertiary sector, the rise of new industries such as armaments and the transport revolution. His final chapter analyses the reality of and reasons for Britain's subsequent decline as a world economic superpower. This study, first published in 1982, draws together a wide range of material and provides an invaluable framework for the understanding of a complex and richly-documented period.

Britains role in the mid-nineteenth century as the worlds greatest economic power was an extraordinary phenomenon, foreshadowed in the Industrial Revolution of the century before and originating from a unique combination of global and indigenous factors.
In this study Francois Crouzet analyses the growth and in late Victorian Britain decline of the nations economy, drawing on an immense amount of quantitative data to examine and explain its development. The book begins with a macroeconomic survey of the period, reviewing broad fluctuations in economic growth and the question of the mid-Victorian boom, structural changes in the balance of the economy, demographic movements, capital formation and the influence of Free Trade. Professor Crouzet then goes on to look in detail at the different sectors of the economy, assessing the effects of the relative decline of agriculture against industry, the growth of the tertiary sector, the rise of new industries such as armaments and the transport revolution. His final chapter analyses the reality of and reasons for Britains subsequent decline as a world economic superpower.
This study, first published in 1982, draws together a wide range of material and provides an invaluable framework for the understanding of a complex and richly-documented period.

FranAois Crouzet's work concentrates on the period of the second Hundred Years War between Britain and France (1689-1815). In the present volume, several chapters examine some of the economic aspects of this protracted struggle, from the role of Huguenot refugees in financing war against Louis XIV, to the impact of the Napoleonic wars in Britain and the blockade which Britain imposed on France. International trade is also a major theme, with studies on the rise of Bordeaux in the 18th century, Anglo-Brazilian trade, and of ventures in Europe by Boston merchants at the peak of the French Revolution. The final articles deal with the period after 1815, comparing business dynasties in Britain and France, and surveying the debate on the 'slowness' of French economic growth during the 19th century.

The 'first industrialists' were the pioneers and leaders of the British Industrial Revolution, the men who founded factories and other large establishments, which were typical of the new economic system. They had a number of precursors since the sixteenth century, but, on the whole, they were a new breed, which emerged in the late eighteenth century. They were markedly different from the leaders of traditional industry. This book is focused on the social and occupational origins of those founders of modem British industry: what kind of families did they come from? What was their occupation before they set up as industrialists? In discussing these and other issues, this study (based on Professor Crouzet's 1983 Ellen McArthur Lectures) makes an important contribution to the problem of social mobility during the Industrial Revolution.