This looks interesting, but the link does not work for me - I get a mostly blank page with no indication of how to get from there to where I might want to go. Hugh Thornton Cheshire, England
From: Norris Lockley <nlockley73@googlemail.com> Subject: [CR] The Decline and Fall of the St Etienne Cycle Industry To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2010, 14:41
About fifty-seven years ago , as a student, I was given a copy of Edward Gibbon's book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to read and analyse. A monumental task, and one that has affected both my personal psyche and my literary style ever since
A couple of months ago I stumbled, in the internet-stumbling sense, upon another literary gem, that had been written to describe the decline of another empire, but one that took place a couple of hundred years after Gibbon had put pen to paper, but with no less disaster for those involved.
The title of the work and its contents should be of interest to any Francophile on the List. Entitled* The Bicycle Industry of St Etienne : the end of a local industrial system* it was commissioned ,I believe, by the Chamber of Trade of that once proud city, and researched and written by Andre Vant, a Professor at the Universite Jean Moulin, St Etienne in 1993.
It is not a tremendously long document but it does chronicle in some detail the long term malady of the French bicycle and accessory industry in the area around St Etienne, and describes some of the failures of those involved to rise out of their complacency ...the Ostrich syndrome in a sense.
My advice to those Listers who want to delve into the dirty past of the St Etienne industry, is that they should put another couple of logs on the fire that is if you are experiencing the freezing cold that we have over in Northern England), get yourself a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape red wine, and then settle down in your most comfortable armchair and prepare yourself for a long read.
The writer's French syntax and grammar can be taxing at time...but what the heck, break out another bottle.
The article can be found at:
*
http://www.persee.fr/
Once on the site, there are possibilities of havin the article in pdf form.
Norris Lockley
Settle UK