ABSTRACT
The old and always lively debate on the role of the periphery in the development of the centre, or more precisely, of the colonial world in the rise of the West, is for the most part focused on the Old World, particularly Great Britain, the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution. France, much less studied in this debate, constitutes just as interesting a case study, due to the length of time it was involved in the colonial world—from the last third of the 17th century to the second half of the 20th—-its role in European politics, and the nature of its development process. The possession of the important colony of Saint-Domingue, coupled with the size of its colonial trade, made France a colonial power on par with England at the end of the Anden Regime. France was also the second nation of Western Europe to industrialise. Finally, only France and England out of all the Western European nations, experienced a more or less continuous development process. Spain and Portugal’s economic development, for example, stagnated from the 17th century onwards, with neither country industrialising until the late 19th century, and, even then, only modestly. Likewise, the Netherlands, also a colonial power, suffered from static growth and late industrialisation.
