A Velvet Empire

After Napoleon’s downfall in 1815, France embraced a mostly informal style of empire, one that emphasized economic and cultural influence rather than military conquest. A Velvet Empire is a new global history of French imperialism in the nineteenth century, providing new insights into the mechanisms of imperial collaboration that extended France’s power from the Middle East to ...

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After Napoleon’s downfall in 1815, France embraced a mostly informal style of empire, one that emphasized economic and cultural influence rather than military conquest. A Velvet Empire is a new global history of French imperialism in the nineteenth century, providing new insights into the mechanisms of imperial collaboration that extended France’s power from the Middle East to Latin America and ushered in the modern age of globalization.

David Todd shows how French elites pursued a cunning strategy of imperial expansion in which new and conspicuous commodities such as champagne and silk textiles, together with loans to client states, contributed to a global campaign of seduction. French imperialism was no less brutal than that of the British. But while Britain widened its imperial reach through settler colonialism and the acquisition of far-flung territories, France built a “velvet” empire backed by frequent military interventions and a broadening extraterritorial jurisdiction. Todd demonstrates how France drew vast benefits from these asymmetric, imperial-like relations until a succession of setbacks around the world brought about their unravelling in the 1870s.

A Velvet Empire sheds light on France’s neglected contribution to the conservative reinvention of modernity and offers a new interpretation of the resurgence of French colonialism on a global scale after 1880. This panoramic book also highlights the crucial role of collaboration among European empires during this period—including archrivals Britain and France—and cooperation with indigenous elites in facilitating imperial expansion and the globalization of capitalism.

Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Forgotten Empire 4
Counter-Revolutionary Empire 10
Collaborative Empire 16
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Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Forgotten Empire 4
Counter-Revolutionary Empire 10
Collaborative Empire 16
1 Empire without Sovereignty: The Political Economy of French Informal Imperialism 25
Talleyrand's Imperial Vision 30
The Invention of Neo-Colonialism 37
Celebrating European Civilization 44
Saint-Simonian Economics and Empire 51
A French Imperialism of Free Trade 58
A Turn to Formal Empire 66
2 Algeria, Informal Empire Manqué 72
The Ideological Origins of French Algeria 78
The Bourbon Restoration's Colonial Scheme 84
The Politics and Geopolitics of the 1830 Expedition 89
Collaboration with 'Abd al-Qadir 96
Economic Failure 104
The Arab Kingdom, a Failed Revival of Informal Empire 110
3 Champagne Capitalism: The Commodification of Luxury and the French Empire of Taste 123
The Acceleration of Globalization in France 127
The Banality of Luxury 134
Foundations of Neo-Courtly Economic Growth 142
The Global Commodification of French Taste 151
The Imperialism of the Empire of Taste 160
4 Conquest by Money: The Geopolitics and Logistics of Investment Colonization 175
The Global Scale of French Foreign Lending 179
Debt and Empire in French Political Economy 186
The Haitian Origins of French Capital Exports 196
Conquest by Money in the Middle East 206
Financial Imperial Overreach in Mexico 218
5 Agents of Informal Empire: French Expatriates and Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in Egypt 227
French Imperial Expatriates 231
The Colony's Influence 237
A French Legal Borderland 245
The Imperial Profits of Extraterritoriality 254
The Crisis of French Extraterritoriality in Egypt 260
End of French Ascendancy 266
Conclusion 277
Bibliography 287
Index 331
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