Privilege has long been understood as the constitutional basis of Ancien Régime France, legalizing the provision of a variety of rights, powers and exemptions to some, whilst denying them to others. In this fascinating new study however, Jeff Horn reveals that Bourbon officials utilized privilege as an instrument of economic development, freeing some sectors of the economy from pre-existing privileges and regulations, while protecting others. He explores both government policies and the innovations of entrepreneurs, workers, inventors and customers to uncover the lived experience of economic development from the Fronde to the Restoration. He shows how, influenced by Enlightenment thought, the regime increasingly resorted to concepts of liberty to defend privilege as a policy tool. The book offers important new insights into debates about the impact of privilege on early industrialization, comparative economic development and the outbreak of the French Revolution.

'Horn’s book is probably the fullest examination of eighteenth-century French trade and industry available in English … [it is] an impressive book.'

Michael Sonenscher Source: The American Historical Review

'In this challenging book, Jeff Horn argues for a broader and more positive understanding of privilege. He views it as an institutional arrangement that early modern states resorted to in the furtherance of their economic goals. Privilege formed part and parcel of the policy known to researchers as mercantilism, which, in France, was espoused by Bourbon rulers and their advisers from the time of Colbert (1664–83) and was only dispensed with completely under Calonne in the 1780s.'

P. M. Jones Source: European History Quarterly

‘Economic Development in Early Modern France is an intrepid and thought-provoking intervention into scholarly debates about European economic history from the era of Louis XIV through the French Revolution. Today, most scholars agree that France’s economy grew significantly, if unevenly, during the eighteenth century. Debates focus largely on questions of how economic development took place, in which sectors, and why. During this heyday of mercantilism, the royal government’s intensive oversight of manufacturing and trade has often been represented as hindering innovation, discouraging entrepreneurialism, and undermining competitiveness. This study by Jeff Horn turns this conventional wisdom on its head by casting the state as the engine behind French economic development through its strategic application of privilege.’

Lauren R. Clay Source: Enterprise and Society