The Pre-industrial Urban System
France 1740–1840

A view of the evolution of the French urban system before the Industrial Revolution.

Bernard Lepetit (Author), Godfrey Rogers (Translated by)

9780521417341, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 July 1994

504 pages, 25 b/w illus. 25 tables
23.5 x 15.6 x 3.4 cm, 0.85 kg

"Lepetit makes good observations of the links between politics, administration, and public finance." The Journal of Urban Technology

This is a landmark publication in the urban study of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which appears here for the first time in English. Highly acclaimed in the original French edition, it provides a synoptic view of the evolution of the French urban system before the Industrial Revolution by examining not only the major cities but the wider urban hierarchy. The innovations of this study lie in Lepetit's methodology: his use of models of urban interaction and the unravelling of the complex spatial dimensions to urbanization. He also sets up a detailed analysis of French urbanization and regionalism, and the different aspects of urban society: finance, building, trade, images and innovation. Lepetit's ideas will be of major interest to scholars of urbanization and the industrial revolution in Europe.

List of figures
List of tables
Foreword
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. The urbanisation of France
2. Urban images
3. The town, the economy, the territory
4. An essay in urban typology
5. Hierarchical gradations
6. The new geography of power
7. The France of the chefs-lieux
8. Towns and roads
9. Urban systems: from frameworks to networks
10. Back to representations
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]