For decades after John Hobson’s analysis of the ‘economic taproots’ of colonialism and Lenin’s definition of imperialism as the ‘highest stage of capitalism’ at the beginning of the twentieth century, through Robinson and Gallagher’s ‘economics of free trade’, down to ‘development theory’ in the 1960s, economic and commercial arguments dominated much of the debate on European overseas expansion. Many historians disagreed with such perspectives about the primacy of commerce, however, suggesting that politics (and geopolitics) played the key role in the conquest of much of the earth’s surface by European powers and other imperial states, such as the United States and Japan. Since the 1970s, with the cultural turn in history, emphasis has shifted to the realm of ideas and representations as the substructure for imperialism.

Now there appears to be a rediscovery of the economics of empire, with new works on particular businesses, patterns of trade, and commercial relations between the colonizing and colonized countries. This huge book – it weighs several kilograms – is one example, bringing together the work of many French historians and studies taken from recent doctoral theses. The themes, periods, and places covered are numerous in the thirty-odd chapters, and there is a lengthy introduction and no fewer than four conclusions. The chronology ranges from French economics and the colonization of Algeria in the 1830s through to the war in Indochina in the 1950s. There are specific chapters on those areas; on other French colonial regions in sub-Saharan Africa, Tunisia, Djibouti, and Reunion Island; on French spheres of commercial and financial influence in China and Egypt; and on metropolitan France.

The thrust of the book, as the subtitle indicates, is on commercial networks that extended into the world of politics and even education. A particularly useful section provides cases studies of colonial activities undertaken by the business elites in Bordeaux, Marseille, Toulon, Lyon, Le Havre, Mulhouse, and the industrial Nord region of France. Other chapters treat organizations such as the Paris Chamber of Commerce, the Comité des forges (the syndicate of mine-owners), and the instituts coloniaux (lobbying and colonial promotion institutes set up around France). Several chapters look at theorists of colonial expansion, such as Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, and one examines the teaching of ‘colonial economics’ in French universities and schools. One author looks at the links between missionaries and capitalists, another at the commercial relations between France and Germany in the colonial world.

Trying to calculate whether colonialism did or did not return a profit to the great powers, at the end of the balance sheet, is a difficult and ultimately fruitless effort. Jacques Marseille, in Empire colonial et capitalisme français: histoire d’un divorce (1984), doubted that, in a general sense, imperialism was worth it for the country as a whole, though he said that particular sectors and companies did make substantial profits. The contributors to this volume do not reject that thesis, but they develop a subtle analysis of the various institutions, individuals, and firms closely tied to the colonial enterprise and the ways in which their interests were interlinked. Bankers, merchants, and other businessmen frequently promoted colonialism, but they faced enormous challenges in trying to gain profits – problems in raising capital and obtaining labour, the lack of infrastructure overseas, commercial rivalries (both among French firms and with foreign competitors), and the reluctance of the French state, for a long part of the colonial era, to commit vast resources to distant domains with occasionally dubious potential. For some, colonialism was a true vocation and commercial raison d’être, while others opportunistically took advantage of access to the raw materials and markets provided overseas. The end of empire did not spell the ruin of these interests; indeed, many French companies and investors proved very savvy in being able to restructure their activities, redirect their energies, and sometimes simply retain their interests in newly independent states (behaviour that, of course, gave rise to charges of neo-colonialism).

Though this dense volume may overwhelm readers with detail (enlivened by good illustrations), and few will have a need or desire to read the collection from start to finish, the case studies and ‘micro-histories’ relativize the role not only of the economic stakes in empire but also of imperial activities in metropolitan business strategies. They also show the benefits of a discussion of colonialism that moves away from overarching theories to specific examples, and from focus on great entities such as the state and capitalism (in a systemic sense) to attempts to trace and decipher the complex arterial and capillary networks that established themselves in the colonies. This work valuably relates the colonial period to the wider narrative, before and after the empire, of French economic history.