This little book represents a new step in the long-term research project of defining the cultures of industrial science in Europe between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Robert Fox is well known for his contribution to this endeavour and to Franco-British communication in the history of science and technology. In this line, this is a bilingual volume, and it revisits topics presented in classic publications by Fox and Guagnini such as Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850–1939 (1993) and Laboratories, Workshops, and Sites: Concepts and Practices of Research in Industrial Europe, 1800–1914 (1999). The team is led this time by Yves Bouvier, who features as editor in most of the volumes in the History of Energy series of which this is the first release, and Pascal Griset, who provides some comments. While this book does not surpass the careful edition and analysis of Fox and Guagnini's previous works, it certainly contains a selection of well-crafted articles combining experience with novelty. It provides relevant insights on what constitutes ‘research’ and ‘innovation’ and offers a wide-ranging perspective on the sites in which they are produced.

The opening chapter, by Bernard Carlson, studies the case of independent inventors who are able to have an effect on the market and challenge large companies through radical innovations. Carlson, who has been working on a new biography of Tesla, emphasizes the advantages of working in a small laboratory and of being able to focus exclusively on invention, leaving the tasks of production and marketing to other agents. He gives an expert analysis of Tesla's activities, allowing him to provide valuable insights into the cognitive (but also socio-economic) nature of the innovation process in the nineteenth-century electrical industry.

Alain Cortat examines the strategies of two small Swiss companies in the field of electrical-cable manufacturing over the course of a century. Small firms were able to obtain a share of the market and develop successfully over a long period through strategic alliances between them and public laboratories and university researchers. Thus they could make large investments and keep up with technological developments. While the laboratories of small companies were, in general, not the site of original inventions, they were important enough to keep up with innovation and to develop products which allowed them to survive against competitors with far more resources. University laboratories were in certain cases at the origin of the development of industrial research within companies, but the relationship between the latter and the former tended to loosen when company laboratories where created, often in connection with the development of a particular new technology. In another chapter in this book, on the development of a specialized laboratory of electrical engineering at the university of Toulouse, Marie-Pierre Bès revisits some of these topics by studying through interviews and analysis of project documents the strategies of an emerging research group across public and private spheres.

In his chapter, Serge Paquier analyses the development of long-distance transmission of electrical power as a transnational endeavour catalysed by international exhibitions in the 1880s, and crowned by the Frankfurt electro-technical exhibition of 1891. He describes the role in this context of Swiss companies; their ability to play a mediating role in German, French and British initiatives; their strategic geographical and technical role in the production and exploitation of hydroelectricity; and the relevance of open-air trials which challenge traditional definitions of ‘laboratory’.

Graeme Gooday uses in his contribution his major experience in historicizing the cultures of electrical measure, to tackle an underexplored topic – the problem of producing permanent magnets. His chapter includes a useful historiographical revision of the major actors in Franco-British magnet-making, and provides a critical analysis of their historical perceptions of the field. Gooday stresses the role that secrecy had in this industrial production and how, in his opinion, this has shaped its history. Furthermore, he offers an account of Marie Curie's early work in this field.

Mirroring Carlson's opening, in the last chapter of the book Gabriel Galvez-Behar tackles the case of an inventor, the French Clément Ader, who worked independently but often performed commissions for large companies. He contributes with a relevant discussion on the distinct but sometimes intersecting roles of industrial invention and management, through a case which diverges in certain aspects from that of Tesla. At the end of the book Pascal Griset provides some analytical keys in the form of conclusions, which are too sketchy, though, for the relevance of this collection of chapters. Overall, this is a good addition to the historical literature on industrial science and innovation, suitable for scholars who can read in more than one language.