A "biography" of the French economy—something so familiar and omnipresent that it is little understood or questioned.

There's nothing natural about the notion of a national economy. It is the product of gradual institutionalization undertaken during the interwar period, in hopes of giving the State room to maneuver and supplying it new areas where it can intervene. Thomas Angeletti explores the work ofeconomists, statisticians, representantives of labor and management unions, political leaders, and administrators who have gathered proof that an economic entity exists whose variations can be measured. After serving as a privileged framework for planning, the resulting object also reveals the limits it imposes when, during crises, the economy acts more upon the State than vice versa.