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French and Italian Studies
The Gustave Gimon Collection on French Political Economy
 In
1996 the Stanford University Libraries acquired a collection of
books and manuscripts that concentrate broadly on the philosophical
and social foundations of economic theory in France from the late
sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. In recognition
of intensified programs in French studies at Stanford, notably the
creation of the Institute for French Interdisciplinary Studies,
now the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, this
purchase was supported by special funding from President Gerhard
Casper’s office, the Stanford University Libraries, and, most
importantly, by the relatives of Gustave Gimon (1907-1991), a courageous
leader of the French Resistance and a philanthropist whose sens
civique was evident in a life dedicated to social responsibility
and community service.
This large set of research materials is composed primarily of works
in French, but within a comparative world-wide perspective that
includes works on religious theory, trade with the Americas, colonial
policy, and transmission of economic systems to non-European settings.
It contains close to a thousand titles in approximately 1500 volumes,
enlarged further by multi-volume sets or smaller internal collections
that make the acquisition unique. While a small group of 73 manuscripts
is included, most of the material is printed, often in ephemeral
or rare successive editions. Going beyond the more predictable titles
widely held in research libraries and reproduced in microform or
reprint, the Gimon Collection includes carefully selected ranges
of publications on related topics, bringing celebrated works together
with lesser known responses and offering significant contributions
to economic thinking that have often been overlooked, not fully
studied, or not seen in relation to their contemporary commentaries.
The collection’s unusual depth represents the lifetime effort
of a private collector whose scholarship is evident in the material
he assembled.
Even with its clear unifying theme, the broad range of topics reflects
the fact that political economy was not formally constituted as
a discipline until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
Thus in its early segments, beginning with the late sixteenth century,
the collection contains works touching on a variety of themes in
French and European religious, political, social, cultural, and
economic history. Economic questions are considered, but in a larger
philosophical context. This may be seen, for example, in the many
ephemeral publications on the Wars of Religion, uncommon editions
of Jean Bodin’s works, and multiple viewpoints on François
Hotman’s Franco-Gallia. Competing theories on
the nature of monarchy and the need for constitutional limits are
combined with publications relating those controversies to official
decrees or remonstrances that are more obviously linked to taxation,
trade, or public finance. Among the rarer titles within the early
sections are the first collected edition of remonstrances against
a French king (published between 1490 and 1496), a first printed
edition of the Edict of Nantes, and rare early editions
of Jean Bodin’s Six livres de la république.
It is in the large eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sections
that the theme of political economy becomes most clearly focused.
Key works on major economic debates are paired with opposing theories,
most notably physiocratic and anti-physiocratic, enriched by publications
with diverse perspectives on such issues as colonial theory (including
studies of slavery), the concept of empire, public welfare, probabilities
and statistics, trade policy (including publishing and the book
trade), transportation, and agriculture. Combined, they demonstrate
the interlacing of economics and political theory in the years before
and after the French Revolution. Utopian speculation plays a major
part in the collection, beginning with eighteenth-century responses
to earlier works, such as those of Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella,
and continuing in the nineteenth-century section with theories that
shaped both European and American communal societies and large scale
plans for sharing of wealth. There are clusters of editions and
polemical publications surrounding the work of Charles Fourier,
Victor Considérant, Saint-Simon, and Pierre Joseph Proudhon,
as well as ephemeral editions, such as those of Flora Tristan, that
are rarely found together. Journals and newspapers, especially those
promoting worker’s rights, form an important part of the nineteenth-century
section, with first proofs, full runs, and related publications
surrounding l’Écho des travailleurs, L’Écho
de la fabrique, La Phalange, and Le Nouveau monde.
The collection’s many smaller sub-collections have been listed
separately on finding guides
available from the curator or in the Department of Special Collections.
One of the larger
sets of ephemera is available as a searchable database.
Conference and Publication
In
April 2004, the Stanford University Libraries and the France-Stanford
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, with the generous support
of the Flora Family Foundation, sponsored an international conference,
The Gimon Conference on French Political economy. This event brought
together over 20 scholars from the US, France, and Great Britain,
for 3 days of presentations and debates. The schedule
of the Gimon conference is available on the Web. We anticipate publishing
the papers presented at this gathering.
The Gimon conference coincided with the publication of A vast
and useful art : the Gustave Gimon Collection on French Political
Economy, edited by Mary Jane Parrine. Stanford University Libraries,
2004, a book containing the catalogue of the Gimon Collection of
French Political Economy, as well as detailed thematic essays on
its "highlights" and five essays by leading scholars.
This publication is available for purchase
from the SUL Department of Special Collections.
Last modified:
January 23, 2008
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