Paul V. Dutton's narrative of the evolution of French social policy in the interwar years is a pioneering contribution. Subsequent studies will doubtless supplement and even substantially revise his account but they will all be in his debt. However much one might disagree with his ordering or omission of causal factors, this book must be read by anyone interested in the development of twentieth-century French social policy.

Dutton's analysis of the welfare-promoting forces in early post–World War I France is succinct; first came the desire to reward the troops and their families: second, the fear of workers' revolution; and third, the need to integrate the German-inspired social insurance system in a reacquired Alsace Lorraine with that of the rest of France. Dutton also rightly focuses on the existence of a pronatalist political consensus as an important force in French social policy. In a notably fractious society, pronatalism won support from almost every important political actor, including Communists and feminists.

In a short book, Dutton cannot be expected to detail every factor in the formation of French social policy. His list of explanatory factors is heavily weighted in favor of class relations—certainly a plausible orientation in a heavily class-divided society. He stresses industrialists' attraction to a low-cost “salaire vital” providing benefits to relatively rare large families and avoiding a more-expensive “family wage” based on the male household head. Although the book claims to deal with the period 1914–1947, its real focus is the interwar period. The better-analyzed post–World War II years are treated summarily and interested readers should go elsewhere.

Although making important points, the books sometimes lacks balance. While helping to explain the familial orientation of French social policy, Dutton largely ignores its other peculiarities, such as its slow adoption of unemployment insurance. He focuses on some key actors in the construction of national social policy, for example, the Comité Central des Allocations Familiales (CCAF), the employers' association that developed its own network of private firms offering pronatalist incentives, and the Fédération nationale de la Mutualité Française (FNMF), the federation of mutual aid societies that exerted enormous political influence. Still, he ignores other powerful political actors, such as regional welfare institutions. Almost no attention is paid to regional private and public institutions, such as the great Hospices Civils de Lyons, which provided aid to large numbers of people. Such institutions were critical to educating the public about the possibilities of social policy. Purely political factors are also given short shrift. The extraordinary role of the center-right in shaping the French welfare state is little analyzed.

Dutton does important work in providing an overall summary and analysis of interwar legislation He explores the growth of the French welfare state in the interwar years from Edouard Grinda's landmark parliamentary report of January 1924, with its support for compulsory contribution and the coverage of major health risks, to the passage of social insurance legislation in 1928 and 1930, and the Family Code of 1939. He shows how the Popular Front transformed the character of family allowances by putting them on the bargaining table in 1936 and making them subject to arbitration in 1937. Government subsidy of agricultural participation in social insurance broadened the plan considerably but offered peasants more favorable access to insurance. The significant role of right-wing rural demagogues in expanding the system to the countryside is cogently explained.

The least successful elements of Dutton's study are his efforts to provide a comparative context for his study or to demonstrate its contemporary relevance. The theme of the French welfare state as success story is inadequately explored. By the 1980s, he tells us, the once laggard welfare state had become one of “remarkable generosity and durability,” offering benefits of “almost Scandinavian proportions.” Unfortunately, Dutton's study concludes decades before even the most charitable could consider France as a paragon of social policy. Were the successes of the 1980s implicit in the advances of the 1930s? Were there unique characteristics of French policies established in the interwar years that enabled it to endure the stormy 1980s? Does pronatalism retain its hold on French public opinion? Dutton briefly concludes that the French welfare state survived because it “demonstrated close continuities with the nation's past, its culture, and popular perceptions of national crisis.” Without considerably more elaboration, this is perilously close to tautology with more than a nod to presentism.

Dutton's effort to place the French welfare state in comparative context is thoroughly admirable. Instead of trying to address issues of contemporary relevance, however, it might have been much more useful to have placed it in interwar comparative perspective. Why was the French center right so much more amenable to welfare-state reform than the British and American? What were mutual aid societies so much better able to defend their position in France than in the United States or the United Kingdom? Why did France fail to develop unemployment policies during an era in which unemployment was the leading social problem. Although Dutton does not address these issues, his book will certainly be of great value for those who will address them.