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Enlightenment Science

and the State in

Revolutionary France:

The Legacy of CharlesCoulston Gillispie

Jeff Horn

Manhattan College

A quarter century ago, Charles Coulston Gillispie published Science anPolity in France at the End of the Old Regime(1980). A landmark in the hitory of science, in Science and Polity, Gillispie authoritatively illustratehow historians could integrate the local knowledge embodied in bi

graphy, a mastery of institutional detail and a close attention to thday-to-day realities of the lived experience with the more universalistconcerns that drive the history of science. Happily, Gillispie has nalproduced the long-awaited sequel,Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years (2004). To understand the scholarly stimuluprovided by the rst volume and to place that masterwork into the context both of Gillispies lifetime of historical inquiry and the changing con

tours of the contemporary eld, this essay will survey the evolution recent studies of science and technology in Revolutionary France (17891815) through an exploration of the new and culminating volume Science and Polity in France.

With the appearance of volume one ofScience and Polity, Gillispie unveiled his rst sweeping synthetic work since 1960sThe Edge of ObjectivitAn Essay in the History of Scientic Ideas.Divided into three parts: Institu

tions; Professions; and Applications, the former work put into practice thimplied criticism of his system-building colleague Thomas S. Kuh


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ence and polity cannot be doubted in Gillispies account of the twilighof Francesancien rgime.

Throughout his career, Gillispie has revealed an impressive afnity fbiography, both individual and collective (1970, 1971, 1997). In Scien

and Polity, this proclivity is particularly effective in demonstrating thmain themes of the work. Gillispie, who depicts the hands-on knowledgof how the related processes of innovation, invention and production actually worked, gives the experts who were read and relied upon for thescientic preeminence by their contemporaries life. To take just a few examples, the portraits of Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Jean-Paul Maraand Henri-Louis Duhamel de Monceau drawn by Gillispie are unforgett

ble and changed how historians conceived of the practice of physiocracmedical experimentation and scientic writing in the late eighteenthcentury (Dhombres 1989, pp. 357). At no time does this important boostray far from a delineation of the increasingly close linkage among scence, state and society that was such an important featureculturally, plitically, and sociallyof the late eighteenth century. Gillispie revealehis impressive learning on every page: the wealth of institutional deta

biographical data and scientic knowledge that made this seemingly ovewhelming project viable revealed the magnitude of the difference that achival mastery makes in writing an enduring synthetic account.

Both implicitly and explicitly, Gillispie resisted those who, like DavS. Landes in The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and IndustriDevelopment in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (1969), championean Anglocentric approach to the owering of technology and especial

science during the rst decades of industrialization. By focusing sustaineattention on the impressive weight of French contributions, Gillispsought to force his English-speaking contemporaries to reckon with deveopments in France while, at the very least, justifying further research oFrench institutions and their achievements in fostering technological advance. This continuing Anglo-centric focus has been continued by thowho follow in Landes wake such as Margaret C. Jacob (1997, 2004

Ironically, Gillispies implicit depiction of a French state that was detemined to go beyond the relatively free play of laissez-faire economic deve

P er sp ec ti ve s o n S ci en ce 1


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projects on the ancien rgime, the clear signals that a succeeding volumwould be forthcoming, focused attention on both sides of the Atlantic oscience during the Revolution. It was no accident that the General Conclusions by James E. McClellan III for a 1999 conference held in Paris o

the subject of Sciences et techniques autour de la Rvolution franaisewere subtitled Waiting for Charles Gillispie in clear expectation of denitive interpretation (2000).

Historians may have been waiting for Gillispie, but they did not hatheir own investigations. Unsurprisingly, historians in France have undetaken a series of path-breaking research projects that have greatly enricheour understanding of the practice of Enlightenment science and its accom

plishments during the age of Revolution. The most wide-ranging of thestudies was also the rst to appear: Nicole and Jean Dhombres,Naissandun nouveau pouvoir: sciences et savants en France (17931824) (1989). ThFrench-language work is the one that most resembles the second volumofScience and Polity.But two important French thses recently turned intmagisterial books also deserve to be considered in the context of Gillispienewest offering: Liliane Hilaire-Prez, Linvention technique au sicle d

Lumires(2000) and Patrice Bret,Ltat, larme, la science : Linvention de lrecherche publique en France (17631830) (2002). Among French-languagexplorations, these exemplary studies are supplemented by two impressivcollections of articles: the aforementioned volume edited by Bret anDorigny (2000) and Liliane Hilaire-Prez and Anne-Franoise Garoneds.,Les chemins de la nouveaut: innover, inventer au regard de lhistoire(2003Taken together, these articles esh out our emerging sense of the contex

of innovation and industrial development at the end of the eighteentcentury.1 These French language works follow up on many of Gillispieinsights and establish the comparability of the approach to economdevelopment taken by the English and French states and how intertwinetheir approach to industrialization, technological transfer and the fosteing of innovation were during the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution.

Among scholars writing in English, several should be considerethrough the prism of the legacy of Charles Coulston Gillispie. They in

114 Enlightenment Science and the State in Revolutionary France


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moved away from the Gillespian approach appear to be in the ascendanKen Alder (1997, 2002) is probably the most prominent of these historans and in his wake has come studies like Jessica Riskins (2002). As shabe explored below, this mixed reaction to Science and Polityand Gillispie

approach more generally can be glimpsed in the published version of voume two.

Science and Polity in France: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Years isweighty tome divided into nine lengthy chapters composed of multipsections that could often stand alone as shortand sometimes not sshortarticles. Gillispie begins with chapters on the subjects that he most comfortable with: Science and Politics under the Constituent A

sembly and Education, Science, and Politics. Intermediate chapters oThe Museum of Natural History and the Academy of Science: Rise anFall, The Metric System, and Science and the Terror detail the commencement of both the Revolutions and the contemporary elds fall froscientic grace. Gillispie then focuses on the constructive possibilities inherent in a truly revolutionary science in Scientists at War and thThermidorean Convention and Directory. Gillispie concludes with on

two chapters on the rst decades of the nineteenth century: Bonaparand the Scientic Community and Positivist Science. Although manthemes are explored across changes in political regimes, the generally linear development of the volume encourages the reader to adopt a chronlogical perspective on the Revolutionary era that is largely missing frovolume one.

Science and Politics under the Constituent Assembly sums up man

of Gillispies central concerns in volume two and highlights the diffeences in approach from the treatment of the ancien rgime.This chapter largely the stories of four men of science: Antoine-Laurent LavoisieJean-Sylvain Bailly; Flix Vicq dAzyr; and Marie-Jean de Caritat, Maquis de Condorcet. It has long been clear that Lavoisier and Condorcgure prominently amongst Gillispies roster of scientic heroes. Hertheir lives are explored in extreme and occasionally exasperating detail f

the years 178991. Historians of science and technology will learn reltively little from these lengthy sections (Gillispie 2004, pp. 253



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with all that term implies (see the discussion of Chapter IX for more othis theme). The broad geographic approach of volume one which standas one of its most impressive achievements is also exchanged for an almoexclusive focus on Paris. But if the biographies of Gillispies heroes ca

stultify, the accounts of the doings of Bailly (pp. 1525, 6778), and especially Vicq dAzyr (pp. 3656) illuminate how scientists or those witscientic training could take advantage of the new situations that unfolded along with the emergence of Revolutionary politics. The reforms othe surgical eld and clinical practice in general undertaken by VicdAzyr is both fascinating and successfully rebuts the interpretation oevents put forth by Dora Weiner (1993). Despite my qualms about th

chapter, clearly Gillispie had not lost his touch; he had just suspended in order to champion his heroes.

Unsatisfactory this rst chapter may be, but by giving extensive consideration to the issues of science and scientists under the ConstituenAssembly (178991), Gillispie has refocused attention to this pivotmoment in the development of scientic institutions. This is particularlimportant to correct because of the faulty understanding of the variou

Revolutionary political regimes found in Alder (2002, pp. 1314, 19, 34and Riskin (2002, pp. 261, 264). In a different vein, the Dhombres workalthough generally well-conceived, makes a mistake by starting their investigation of the new power of science and scientists in 1793; they fato consider the potentialitiesboth institutional and personalinherenin the fundamental transformation that marked the shift fromancien rgimto Revolution. Bailly and Lavoisier are but two of the examples marshale

by Gillispie that demonstrate how fruitful this transition could be anhow much of the relationship among scientists, the polity and the state lost if this period is ignored.

In tone, Gillispies treatment of the Constituent Assembly could brepresented as the last rays of sun emanating from theancien rgimethat abecoming swiftly overshadowed by the looming menace of the TerroThis differentiates Gillispie from all the other historians treated in this e

say except for Riskin. Her chapter on Languages of Science and Revolution also bemoans a world about to be lost. But whereas Gillispie canno



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sought to rectify earlier errors and to imitate the successes of the Englismodel. In The Measure of All Things, Alder lauds the Constituents fembarking on new scientic projects (2002, p. 19).

From the perspectives of the military and arms production, Alder an

Bret take contrasting approaches. Whereas Alders chapters that cover thperiod are sketched more broadly and are concerned with promulgatinhis vision of the conceptual changes in the eld of engineering and thpossibility of deploying new tools in engineering, Bret explores the evolution of state institutions without deploring the disappearance of the Boubon military-industrial complex (2002, pp. 6474). These more positivevaluations of the work of the Constituent Assembly reect the consensu

of most historiansGillispies chapter on the subject seems out of toucwith the rest of the historical eld. Such a world we have lost treatmeof this era was completely absent from the rst volume.

The second chapter ofScience and Polity entitled Education, Sciencand Politics is more focused than the rst. The themes are not presentein chronological order: The Educational Legacy of the Old Regime anThe Political Setting come after Scientists in the Legislative Assembly

(17912) and sections on the reform plans of Condorcet and CharleMaurice de Talleyrand-Prigord. This placement makes specic knowedge of the period more necessary than it needed to be and conceals somof the missed opportunities for scientic enterprise during this turbulenera. The initial ten-page section (pp. 100110) is a biographical sketch those scientists and engineersLouis-Bernard Guyton de MorveaClaude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois (Prieur de la Cte-dOr), Lazare Carno

L.-F.-A. Arbogast and Gilbert Rommewho became deputies to thLegislative.When the subject switches to education qua education, Gillispie mak

the astounding statement that There was general agreement that provsion for schooling the youth of the nation was the most urgent mattawaiting the Legislative Assembly (p. 110). It is hard to resist the speculation that this overemphasis by Gillispie is based on Condorcets intere

in the subject which came at the expense of the nuts and bolts of politithat helped lead to his marginalization in the legislature and in the Jaco



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more general thesis on education during the Revolution is laid out herHe contends that programs for general education in science were cast ithe encyclopedic mold [of doing science] and came to little, whereas insttutions for technical training succeeded in producing scientists, eve

though they were intended to turn out engineers and doctors, in large pabecause they were in keeping with needs and forces of the future (p. 112After twelve pages devoted to Condorcets reform plan and ve more tTalleyrands, the reader is left hanging about what happened to these proposals as Gillispie shifts focus back to the old rgime before looking at thPolitical Setting and then the Convention both of which can only bread as what was Condorcet doing in 17923 rather than the more im

portant questions of how was the polity changing in this period and whaopportunities might accompany those changes?

The chapter concludes with the revision of Condorcets proposals anthe proposition of others. In the end, very little was done concerning hideas. Nor is the case for a particular scientic approach to thinkinabout education made clear, forcing the reader to wonder whethGillispie would have bothered to write this chapter at all if Condorcet ha

not been involved; much of the material could have been included in thcreation of new scientic institutions after the Terror treated in ChapteVII (see below). This frustration is particularly vexing in comparison tthe excellent overview of the origins of the vital scientic institutions othe Revolution from a scientic perspective undertaken by the DhombreGillispies Princeton colleague Robert Palmer (1985) and also IssWoloch (1994) rst undertook a more thorough treatment of these educ

tional questions and more importantly, their implementation. The lattework, surprisingly, is missing from the bibliography. In short, this chaptwould have been better suited to inclusion in a biography of Condorcet; was certainly not a convincing or illuminating aspect of the interaction oScience and Polity during the French Revolution.

If the preceding two chapters did not make the case for the mutual interaction of science and politics as successfully as might be hoped, Chapt

III: The Museum of Natural History and the Academy of Science: Risand Fall marks Gillispies return to form. For Gillispie, only the lens



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ministration of Powder and Saltpeter during the last years of the olrgime as well as during the early Republic, Bret has shown the multipavenues of central state support of innovation and illuminated how thwell-known blockages caused by the scientic evaluation of tinkere

could be circumvented (2000, pp. 137148, 2002, pp. 20183). Bret halso demonstrated how Brewers understanding of the English state can bapplied to scientic enterprise across the Channel. The most glaring mising link in the chain forged by Gillispie to link old rgime to new is aexploration of the role invention played by organs of the state in the provinces, a gap that my own research program seeks to eliminate.

Chapter IV, The Metric System, is not only an essential subject in th

delineation of the interaction ofScience and Polity,but in Gillispies handit is also a refutation of those who reject his approach to the discipline (Ader 1998, pp. 74254), here personied by Ken AldersThe Measure of AThings.Cited in the bibliography but not in the notes, unlike other recenworks on the subject (p. 477), Alders full-length book is, in a number oimportant ways, the antithesis of Gillispies denitive 90-page accounthat is spread over two chapters (pp. 223285, 458493). From Gillisp

we do not learn about a personal bicycle trip, whether eighteenth-centurfarms in the Paris basin are still active or the proximity ofancien rgimlandmarks to Euro-Disney as we do from Alder (2002 pp. 9, 24, 71). Instead, this chapter presents a clear, focused narrative that explains whthere was a need for a standard for weights and measures, the proposemeans of determining that standard, the innovative scientic instrumento be used such as the Borda repeating circle, the attempts to measure th

meridian and the creation of a provisional standard meter. Gillispie haproduced a tour de force not a tour de France (Alder 2002, p. 9). Theris an important recognition in this chapter that market forces mattereand that science for its own sake was not the sole consideration in thminds of the principals of the project that is sorely missing from Alderversion (pp. 226, 231). The discussion of the science involved in the proect is particularly well done. To take one example, Gillispies depiction o

the trigonometric principles of surveying is accessible to the lay readeand interesting to the specialist (pp. 2548).



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der that for scientists of the Enlightened era, Truths are to be approxmated and error reduced so far as technically possible (p. 238).

For specialists of the era, Gillispies account will ring true. This prefeence will be both professional and stylistic. Alders book is littered wit

unsupported statements and errors of both fact and judgment that, witthe exception of a few typos, are completely absent from Science and PolitIn addition, the overblown word-painting of Alders version are swepaway by the power of Gillispies clean, unadorned prose (Alder 200pp. 46, 107, 1567). If such issues were not enough to strike a body blotoThe Measure of All Things, an examination of the sources marshaled bGillispie puts the coup de grace to Alders account. The manuscripts un

earthed by Gillispie and the wealth of contemporary pamphlet literatuhe consulted not to mention a much more complete examination French secondary sources enrich his version of events and are largely mising from Alders bibliography and notes. This chapter is Gillispies clebut understated riposte to those who seek to novelize the history of scienand whose mastery of the material does not match the pretensions of thearguments. The master still has a great deal to teach those who would tak

the time to learn.Given Gillispies intellectual commitments, the problems of Chapter VScience and the Terror, (17934) are, perhaps, predictable. The deathof Lavoisier and Condorcet during the Terror contribute to the impresion that Gillispies dismissive account of civilian science is an antrevolutionary diatribe. The notes are slanted heavily toward the revisionists and are not up-to-date. In its concerns and in its personication

evil in the person of Robespierre, rather than in the institutions of Revolutionary government, this chapter reminds the reader of GillispiePrinceton colleague Arno Mayers problematic treatment of the Revolution (pp. 2869, Mayer 2002). In the rst section Terror and Exproprition, Gillispie vents some of his anger at the French government undthe Terror for their cultural policies, which he follows up with a brief anuninspired explanation of the making of the Republican calendar. Fine d

pictions of how two institutionsthe Paris Observatory and the Collgde France weathered the storm of 17934 follow, but they are overshad



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maintain an objective outlook on the historical record. The drawbacks oGillispies version are even more starkly revealed when they are considerein light of the Dhombres much more concise depiction of civilian sciencduring the Terror and their thoughtful if brief treatment of Robespierre

relationship to science. From the perspective of the science involved, thDhombres account may suffer in comparison to Gillispies deeper techncal understanding, but their historical approach to a number of issues more even-handed. The Dhombres inclusion of a section discussing threhabilitation of science is particularly telling in comparison to the tone oGillispies chapter and illustrates the possibilities as well as the sometimlethal threats inherent in the emergence of this more militant, more Rev

olutionary French state (Dhombres 1989, pp. 1148, 6416). The bulof Science and the Terror, is, again, far more suitable to biographies oLavoisier and Condorcet than to a book with the intellectual concerns Gillispies two-volumeScience and Polityproject.

The next chapter, Scientists at War, begins a stretch of three consecutive hundred-page chapters. It builds on an important article (Gillisp1992), but it updates andsomewhat amazinglycondenses the conclu

sions in light of the literature that has appeared in the intervening yearA collective biographical sketch begins the chapter: The Monge Connetion establishes an interesting set of ties among savants. From thoverly-lengthy depiction, an important argument/hypothesis about thmilitary engineering corps emerges: the Monge connection provided thagency through which the technical services made their transition fromthe practices of the Old Regime to institutionalization under the Direc

tory. But once again, Gillispie cannot resist polishing the reputation ohis hero Lavoisier, perhaps in response to Riskins depiction of him asbetter linguist than a scientist (pp. 240262). The passage continues, Expertise passed, to be more precise, from Lavoisier and the Rgie dPoudres through the revolutionary fabrication of arms and munitions tthe formation of the cole Polytechnique . . . before concluding the sentence on a more troubling note and a science with a positivist imprin

bent upon it by involvement in events (Gillispie 2004, pp. 3401).Perhaps unnoticed amidst the problematic connection to positivism



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on the period including a biography of, arguably, the key gureCarn(1971). By going beyond the readily accessible sources on political anmilitary developments consulted by Alder, Gillispie easily lls in many the lacunae in Alders account such as why some commanders were hes

tant to use the new technologies and how that hesitancy was expresseboth in bureaucratic and in political terms. But, once again, Gillispiecriticism is gentle; he does not call Alder to task by name. Yet, after dvouring Gillispies chapter and digesting Brets book, few will return nibble at Alders account.

Although Gillispies generalization of his ndings to the use of secrweapons in the First and Second World Wars will again remind som

readers of Arno Mayer (pp. 3889), the sections Weaponry, The Moblization of Scientists, and Munitions and Guns, are an importaachievement. Gillispie has provided the rst thorough English-languagaccount of these world-shaking events. He has also brought the conclusions of Camille Richard (1922) to new audiences, but updates them substantially, particularly in light not only of his own research but also Brets work on gunpowder manufacture (2002).4

Read Gillispies description of Antoine Baums process for reninsaltpeter as tested by Lavoisier to see the simple yet high-quality expermental science that emerged from the Revolutionary crisis (pp. 4089This short description reveals another strength of Gillispies work. Hoverall approach, like that of his methodological disciple Bret, is to explore how things actually worked and to investigate ideas or concepts they were put into practice rather than the small-scale test projects

unique experiments that are the focus of so much contemporary work the history of science treating this period. Gillispies archival-based dicrimination avoids the hyperbole of repeatedly announcing the eigteenth-century origins of twentieth and now twenty-rst century technlogical marvels or ideas, overstating the importance of scientic activity French politics or celebrating bad and/or unproductive science for rhetorcal or ideological reasons (Horn 2005, Newman and Grafton 2001).

The three sections at the end of this chapter seem almost an oversighInventions, (Gillispie 2004, pp. 42833) focusing on Claude Chappe



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mildly interesting. The chapter ends with a one-paragraph section, Efects of Wartime: Science and the State, that shows why this period wasfalse dawn for science applied to war despite the talents of those involvein the various projects and the great interest in militarily-useful innova

tion by the state: the more innovative weapons and techniques devised bthe experts overreached either the capacity of industry or the imaginatioof commanders, or both, and awaited future realization (p. 444). Hemight have been a more appropriate place for some of Gillispies vitriagainst the Revolution. Yet here, where it would have been rmly withithe connes of exploring the relations of science and the French politcuriously, that vitriol is lacking.

Chapter VII, Thermidorean Convention and Directory, is the mothoroughly satisfying in the book. Gillispie rests his case for the creativiof the much-vilied decade from 1794 to 1804 on the notion that thhistorian of science reads different kinds of evidence (p. 445). The remarkable fruitfulness of these ten years in terms of the creation of institutions and in the development of concrete applications of Enlightened oRevolutionary ideas has been undervalued by many historians, in part, b

cause they focus either on the Revolutionary decade or on Bonaparte. the actual historical record is consulted as Gillispie urges so consistentlthis period cannot and should not be overlooked or downplayed in favor othe early years of the Revolution or the coming of the Empire. Clearly hitorians of science and technology have come to the same conclusions, ether on their own or following the signposts erected by Gillispie. Half othe articles in Sciences et techniques autour de la Rvolution franaise devo

signicant attention to this period as do Bret (2000, 2002) and Alde(1997, 2002).After a brief introduction to the Institutionalization of French Scienc

17941804, Gillispie traces the establishment and early history of number of important institutions, notably the Institut de France, thMusum dHistoire Naturelle, the Bureau des Longitudes, the coNormale, the cole Polytechnique and the cole de Sant which formed

complex of institutions involved in a scientic enterprise that was unmatched in Europe (p. 446). This chapter also includes a section on th



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questions in this chapter concerns the content of the decisions that shapethese institutions and the context, i.e., what were the factors that madthem so effective? This shift in tone and approach is one of the things thmakes this chapter so successful. In this vein, Gillispie includes a very us

ful discussion of the creation of specialized scientic journals and thefunction in fostering innovative practices within the scientic communilike the adoption of a nascent process of peer-review in publication, intenational scientic congresses, and the adoption of the metric syste(Gillispie 2004, pp. 449451, 46572, 48891) The inclusion of litle-known educational institutions like the earliest of the revolutionatechnical schools, the cole de Gographie established by Gaspard Pron

for the purpose of training people to conduct an accurate land surveshows how deeply rooted the institutional impulse toward education anprofessionalization ran in the scientic community (pp. 4816).

The institutional framework of this chapter is again linked to individual biographies. In this chapter, the scientic concerns, personalities, approach to collegiality, and political connections of Georges Cuvi(pp. 4514), Pierre Simon de Laplace (pp. 4545, 5036, 5304), Joseph

Louis Lagrange (pp. 5068), and Monge (pp. 50811, 5207, 530) acentral to the establishment and development of the new scientic institutions. Gillispie has taken full advantage of the work of historians who havfocused solely on these organizations as well as the Dhombres synthesiIn the case of English-language authors, Gillispie has updated them anin the case of the French, he has brought their ndings to an English-speaking audience. The discussion about how and why the co

Polytechnique turned from a training ground for applied engineering ina school that embraced abstract mathematics is particularly well handle(pp. 52040). This more than balances an account of the cole Normaand the Lakanal Law on Education that would have beneted frombroader consultation of the existing secondary literature (pp. 49452esp. 500). One reason why this chapter is more successful than the otheis that the biographical detail is clearly oriented toward the subject

hand; only in a few instances does the hero-worship that marred earlichapters creep back in, such as when Gillispie magnies the importance



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volume into a weighty tome and revealing severe limitations in his undestanding of the new France created in the crucible of Revolution. A futher inducement to extend the chronological framework stems fromGillispies longstanding interest in the Egyptian expedition (Gillispie an

Dewachter 1988). He depicts the roots of Bonapartes interaction with thscientic community and the growth of his coterie of distinguishescientic supporters as well as the continuity with the acquisitive culturpolicies of the Year II in the section Monge in Italy, 17961798. Thsection is remarkably dismissive of Bonaparte and stunningly determinitic about the link between events that took place under the Directory anthe achievements of the Consulate (pp. 554, 600). A clear shift in ton

from the glorication of Condorcet and Lavoisier to the denigration oBonaparte is also apparent in these nal chapters. The criticism Bonaparte as the rst modern cultural imperialist also seems to be unwaranted and historically inaccurate (p. 599). Only Gillispies seeming anmus against Bonaparte can explain such patently inaccurate statements aThe brief interval of the Directory, 179599, was the one interval in thquarter century spanning the revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes whe

the voice of intellectuals was heard in French public life in the way it habeen during the Enlightenment and has normally been since the fall oNapoleon (p. 600). Gillispies maximization of the uniqueness of thBonapartist governments relationship with the scientic community dspite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary is particularly problematic in light of the long-term perspective so effectively deployed in nearevery other chapter of the two volumes ofScience and Polity.

Gillispies treatment of the Egyptian Expedition (pp. 557600) is thmost satisfying of the chapter, but here the depth of his research seemawed. He asserts that Historians have either ignored the rationale of thEgyptian expedition or else taken it for a piece of special pleading(p. 558), and the notes are remarkably sketchy concerning anything thacame after his own important contribution, the publication of all tharchaeological plates from the Description de lEgypte with Mich

Dewachter (1988). Gillispie does not cite the Dhombres fty-plus pageon the subject or any other contemporary historians despite a number o



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Given Gillispies admiration for the scientists in the waning years the ancien rgime, it is not surprising that he has a soft spot for thowould-be philosophes, the idologues, perhaps because they wanted to blike Condorcet (p. 602). This soft spot is minimized by the idologues in

timate connection with Bonapartes coup dtat and the Provisional Consulate. About three-quarters of this unremarkable section is a biographicsketch of the noted doctor and public gure Pierre-Jean-George Caban(pp. 60210).

The section on The Consulate, 17991804 is really about chemiand entrepreneur Jean-Antoine Chaptals four-year stint as Minister of thInterior. Gillispie treats Chaptals ideas on education thoughtfully, but h

understanding of how Chaptal went about trying to foster industrial dvelopment has several troubling factual errors (pp. 612, 616, 622). Twstriking omissions are the work of the numerous provincial institutionthat evaluated, supported and initiated technological developments in thprovinces and the path-breaking activities of two previous Ministers under the Directory who laid the groundwork for these achievements, evethough he is willing to credit them in other areas (p. 622). Gillispies ve

sion of Chaptals institutional achievements can best be understood as thbust detached from a headless horseman careening aimlessly along throute to competitiveness traced by the French economy. The scientic etablishments located in Paris perched atop a framework of regional and lcal institutions such as the 150 Chambres consultatives de Manufacturefabriques, arts et mtiers created in 1803 that funneled informatiomoney and expertise back and forth in order to put new ideas, technol

gies and techniques into practice (Horn and Jacob 1998). By ignoring thprovincial aspects of Chaptals institutional activity, Gillispie has glosseover what was arguably the most important and innovative aspect of thinteraction of science and the polity during the Napoleonic era. Thchoice also prevents the full realization of a Brewer-like conception a new approach to economic and scientic development on the part the French state, which is the focus of my own approach to this pivot

decade.The concluding section, Napoleon and Science is also too limite



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plausible explanation I can conceive of for leaving unmentioned such inventionsof which Gillispie is, of course, awareis that a focus on insttutions not individuals allows him, perhaps unconsciously, to differentiathe relationship of science, the state and the polity after 1815 in the n

chapter without having to explain away the successes of the Consulate anEmpire.

The concluding chapter, Positivist Science treats two major issuediscipline formation and professionalization in the decades after Waterloduring what Gillispie terms the second generation of French preemnence in science (2004, p. 652). He goes on to argue that the Factodifferentiating the status of science in 1815 from what it had been i

1789 were the constitutional and civic basis of institutions formerlqualied as royal, the opening of careers that afforded a livelihood for research combined with teaching, andperhaps most importantthe cration of higher education in science (p. 652). Gillispie traces these issuethematically. He looks at Comparative Anatomy, Experimental Physology, and Mathematical Physics, at some length and includes shodiscussions of Optics, Acoustics, Electricity and Magnetism, Elec

trodynamics, Heat, Thermodynamics, and Work and Energy. AgaiGillispie uses biography to put a human face on the formation of the discplines amidst the institutional tangle characteristic of the period. In thchapter, the chief gures are Laplace (pp. 67785, 68789), Cuvi(pp. 65662) and the physiologists Xavier Bichat (pp. 6638) anFranois Magendie (pp. 66875). Although Gillispie may be deninprofessionalization somewhat problematically in terms that apply only t

science (p. 653), these sections trace coherently the emergence of these ditinct elds of endeavor from the educational and institutional frameworestablished during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Gillispies agument about the legacy of the period from 17891815 will surely excitdebate among historians of nineteenth-century French science.

This nal chapter is masterful in terms of the biographical knowledgrevealed and in the delineation of the emergence of a number of ne

scientic disciplines from the institutional crucible of the Revolutionarand Napoleonic eras, has clear shortcomings as an evaluation of the link



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leave out this aspect of the legacy of the previous era is to massively undeestimate its impact. After all, as Gillispie himself notes, it was to improvthe French economic position that so much of the creative institutiondevelopment of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras was undertake

(pp. 6156).The title of this chapter, Positivist Science, is something of a misn

mer. Following in the wake of the Dhombres thorough and mobroad-based treatment of this issue (1989, pp. 243343), Gillispies refeence to the work of Auguste Comte is direct (2004, p. 654) and pervasivin the sections on anatomy and physiology. However, the positivism dicussed by Gillispie is not the same positivism that seems to permeate th

disciplines of history and history of science. He states, In all three emegent disciplines [physics, zoology, and physiology] a decisive movementoward quantication and control marked the transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, from the encyclopedic enterprise of clasifying things in a natural order to the positivist injunction to determinthe facts and then to act upon them. The shift in spirit is from enlightenment to engineering, not so much hands-on as intellectual engineering,

established disciplines no less than new ones (pp. 6945). AlthougGillispie has, perhaps, taken this point a shade too far, both in the conclusion and in earlier chapters, this version of positivism is not equivalent the xation with progress found so commonly amongst those who dengrate the term. In that sense, this chapter did not set off all the profesional bells and whistles in my head that accompany most references positivism and, in terms of the life sciences, the use of the term adde

genuine analytical value to the analysis. My suspicion is that Gillisphopes to rescue this term from the unreective misuse that characterizes much contemporary usage.

What then does this second volume ofScience and Polityadd to the discpline and to Gillispies mammoth previous contributions? As this articshould make clear, I have serious reservations about the approach, choic

of subjects to be treated and the interpretations of events in this volumDespite such reservations, Gillispies achievement deserves celebratio



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account reminds us that such a weave is far stronger than the sum of iparts.

Many of my criticisms have focused on the differences in approach ansubject matter between the rst and second volumes. Praising the forme

should not be construed as undervaluing the latter. Gillispies treatment the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras will be the starting point of andiscussion of these periods for a very long time. His unrivaled mastery the biographies of the chief scientic actors and his ability to glean thwheat from the archival chaff ensures thatScience and Politywill not soobe superceded. This mastery also guarantees that even those who disagrewith Gillispies interpretations will be forced to contend with them. Lik

the rst volume, and so much of Gillispies earlier work, he has also laiout enormous research challenges for future historical work that shoulguide our efforts for the foreseeable future. The French were more adept afollowing up on those suggestions after the publication of volume onand it is my hope that historians on both sides of the Atlantic will be moattentive to the problems Gillispie has outlined and the methodologhe has modeled. Finally, Gillispie has seen the challenge to his work tha

is both implicit and explicit in a great deal of contemporary Englishlanguage scholarship and made a forceful response that should remind thdiscipline of the kind of insights that made him such a towering guin the rst place. A quarter century from now, historians of science wistill be debating Gillispies conclusions in volume two. In that sensGillispies culminating volume ofScience and Polityshould have a respecable place on the shelves alongside his earlier works. Waiting for Charle

Gillispie was worth it.

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