Écrire et publier des savoirs au XIXe siècle: Une revue en

construction: Les Annales des Ponts et Chaussées

(1831–1866) by Nathalie Montel (review)

André Guillerme

Technology and Culture, Volume 57, Number 4, October 2016, pp. 1012-1013
(Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2016.0124

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/637942

[ Access provided at 22 Feb 2022 17:11 GMT from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico ]
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T E C H N O L O G Y A N D C U L T U R E

embracing incestuous desires for our mothers and murderous ones for our
fathers. Casid needs to provide more theoretical machinery, something
along the lines of “surplus repression,” which would enable us to recognize
pathological versus progressive forms of repression, projection, and per-
haps of rationality itself.
OCTOBER ROD BANTJES
2016 Rod Bantjes is a professor of sociology at St. Francis Xavier University.

VOL. 57
Écrire et publier des savoirs au XIXe siècle: Une revue en construction:
Les Annales des Ponts et Chaussées (1831–1866).
By Nathalie Montel. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015.
Pp. 410. €22.

In technical Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century, civil engi-
neering played a leading role in the application of physical and chemical
sciences to transportation— which was, at the time, considered a public
service—and transportation’s mechanization, regulation, and manage-
ment. The author analyzes one leading civil construction periodical, the
Annales des Ponts et Chaussées, in order to understand civil engineering in
its technological, political, and social historical context—though ecological
issues and the role of the military in “civil” engineering go rather unno-
ticed. One also might note that this periodical was launched well into the
nineteenth century and so comes after industrialization was fully under
way. Basing her research on the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées’
precious archives, Nathalie Montel draws a very distinct portrait of the
new type of engineer-builder who promoted industrialization.
The Annales were published once the 1830 Revolution was over. It was
supported by the new regime, which intended to put forward the Engi-
neering Corps’ public role, as it was actually better known abroad than in
France. In fact, domestic public opinion had raised many strong criticisms
against the Corps, in particular its enormous cost and the inadequate qual-
ity of country roads that were still in a very bad state. “Advertisement for
their research, given their experience and their supervision of technology
is also one of the best means to dismiss all the recent allegations from peo-
ple that mix up the Corps & its administration, & from those who seize
petty administrative mistakes to revile engineers” (vol. 1 [1831], p. 5).
Engineers have a greater capacity to blend theoretical and practical
knowledge than scholars who lack experience, claimed the 1829 Journal du
Génie Civil (vol. 5, p. 306). “In public services there are two kinds of knowl-
edge, the first one that involves laws & government’s executive orders
which help smooth out operations & services’ performance; the second one
that concerns the means of art & science, experience & mediation to

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B O O K R E V I E W S

develop to execute these works & operations in order to maximize assets &
lower drawbacks,” as Charles Dupin, a power-behind-the-throne, men-
tions in the 5 May 1816 Moniteur (vol. 2, p. 7) from the Annales Maritimes
et Coloniales.
In the preface to the second Moniteur issue, in 1817, Dupin indicates
that this type of knowledge “always strongly highlights the truths that have
to be spread, the operations that have to be communicated; in case these
lead to concepts stretched far out from common knowledge through steps
that make them palatable to the public, in the preface to the second Moni-
teur issue, in 1817 they will raise among the members of the Marine Corps
the very interest that always goes with useful things that are easily gras-
pable; never has such a work ever brought about so wide & significant
changes. A lot of prejudices, equally shared among social classes, running
against the Marine Corps, will be progressively rooted out; public opinion
will extend its influence over one branch of common interest that is for the
moment dried out” (p. 7).
Fifteen years later, the same motives back the publication of the An-
nales des Ponts et Chaussées.There are four objectives behind the Annales:
to defeat ignorance; to demonstrate that the Corps is knowledgeable, but
not necessarily scholarly; to compensate for deficiencies in schooling; and
to keep readers informed about laws and regulations, promotions, and sta-
tistics. The technical aspect meets the basic need of having an updated and
focused material overview, with prices and with comparisons.
The Annales are divided into two distinct parts. The first involves laws,
orders, regulations, decisions, formal notifications, newsletters, tariffs,
etc.—all knowledge that is vital to an engineer’s daily activity. The second
part is richer and more varied: material resistance, construction, experi-
ences. Montel engages the reader in drafting committee meetings, in tech-
nical bookstores; nothing is left out, except the Military Engineering Corps,
which also built roads, bridges, ports, and canals.
The entire set of technical periodicals published from 1825 to 1840
must reach ten thousand pages per year, an enormous quantity of infor-
mation produced to meet an unprecedented demand: urban populations
much larger than in the first quarter of the century, who are more literate
and have more free time for reading due to gaslight and stearic candles.
This is serious, scholarly work with a valuable set of references: 400
bibliographic references, reviews, and leading academic indexes.
ANDRÉ GUILLERME
André Guillerme is Emeritus Professor in History of Technology at the Conservatoire
National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, and former director of Centre d’Histoire des Techniques
et de l’Environnement—CDHTE (1997–2012).

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