| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 301 words from this article are provided below; about 588 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Stephen L. Harp. Marketing Michelin: Advertising and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 356. $39.95.

Just over a generation ago, Third Republic France, particularly in its later years, was generally seen as a dormant and declining society, living on past glories and unable to meet present challenges, a portrait most memorably captured by Stanley Hoffmann with the phrase "stalemate society." In the forty years since Hoffmann's classic essay appeared, France experienced the economic miracle of the Gaullist years and emerged as a technological power, particularly in aerospace, nuclear power, and high-speed rail. Historians such as Richard Kuisel, Herrick Chapman, and Gabrielle Hecht have written excellent studies of the new, technocratic French state and its leading industries. These studies do not in themselves, however, challenge Hoffmann's picture of Third Republic immobility but rather can be read sequentially, with the postwar mixed economy and interventionist state rescuing France's backward private sector from its self-imposed "Malthusianism." 1

It may well be time to rethink the conventional wisdom of the lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the French patronat, and Stephen L. Harp's study of Michelin from the Belle Epoque to the Depression years is a convincing step in that direction. Harp's book is innovative in that it traces the roots of the postwar French economic boom back to the start of the century, focusing not on the state but rather on a highly opportunistic and visionary family firm in the traditionally isolated Massif Central. Harp's study of Michelin's diverse marketing strategies convincingly proves his point, stated in the introduction, that corporations and consumer society played as great, if not a greater, role in defining national identity in the twentieth century as did the state and its agents. . . .

There are about 588 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.