The Colonial Machine. French Science and Oversesas Expansion in the Old Regime
James E. McClellan (Stevens Institute of Technology,
Hoboken) et François Regourd (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre - MASCIPO)
“The
rise of modern science and European colonial and imperial expansion are
indisputably two defining elements of modern world history. James E.
McClellan III and François Regourd explore these two
world-historical forces and their interactions in this comprehensive and
in-depth history of the French case in the Old Regime presented here for the
first time. The case is key because no other state matched Old-Regime France as
a center for organized science and because contemporary France closely rivaled
Britain as a colonial power, as well as leading all other nations in commodity
production and participating in the slave trade.
Based on extensive archival research and vast primary and
secondary literatures and sharply reframing the historiography of the field,
this landmark volume traces the development and significance for early-modern
history of the Colonial Machine of Old-Regime France, an unparalleled
agglomeration of institutions geared to the success of the French colonial
enterprise, including the Royal Navy, the Académie Royale des Sciences, the
Jardin du Roi, and a host of related specialist institutions working together at
home and overseas. Mainly supported by the French state, the Colonial Machine
reveals itself through its actions from the time of Colbert and Louis XIV as it
grappled with fundamental problems facing contemporary European colonialism:
cartography and navigation; medical care of sailors, colonists, and slaves; and
applied botany and commodity production.
Historians of globalization and European overseas
expansion, of Old-Regime France, and of science in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries will henceforth take this stimulating volume as a
necessary starting point for further reflection and research.”
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