Résumé :
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Le Canal du Midi, qui se visse dans le sud-ouest France et relie l'Atlantique à la Méditerranée, a été un exploit de génie septième siècle - fait, il était techniquement impossible selon les normes de son époque. Impossible de génie prend un perspicaces et regard divertissant sur le mystère de son succès ainsi que surprenante du canal signification politique. La voie d'eau était une merveille que le pouvoir d'Etat moderne relié à la commande humaine de la nature tout aussi sûrement que l'a lié l'océan à la mer. The Canal du Midi is typically characterized as the achievement of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a tax farmer and entrepreneur for the canal. Le Canal du Midi est caractérisée comme la réalisation de Pierre-Paul Riquet, une taxe agriculteur et entrepreneur pour le canal. Yet Chandra Mukerji argues that it was a product of collective intelligence, depending on peasant women and artisans--unrecognized heirs to Roman traditions of engineering--who came to labor on the waterway in collaboration with military and academic supervisors. Pourtant Chandra Mukerji fait valoir qu'il s'agissait d'un produit de l'intelligence collective, selon des paysannes et des artisans - héritiers de traditions romaines non reconnu de l'ingénierie - qui sont venus au travail sur la voie navigable, en collaboration avec les superviseurs militaires et universitaires. Ironically, while Louis XIV and his treasury minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert used propaganda to present France as a new Rome, the Canal du Midi was being constructed with unrecognized classical methods. Ironiquement, alors que Louis XIV et son ministre du Trésor, Jean-Baptiste Colbert utilisé la propagande pour présenter la France comme une nouvelle Rome, le Canal du Midi a été construite en collaboration avec des méthodes classiques méconnus. Still, the result was politically potent. Pourtant, le résultat était politiquement puissants. As Mukerji shows, the project took land and power from local nobles, using water itself as a silent agent of the state to disrupt traditions of local life that had served regional elites. Comme le montre Mukerji, le projet a pris terre et le pouvoir des nobles locaux, en utilisant de l'eau elle-même comme un agent de silence de l'état de perturber les traditions de la vie locale qui avait servi les élites régionales. Impossible Engineering opens a surprising window into the world of seventeenth-century France and illuminates a singular work of engineering undertaken to empower the state through technical conquest of nature. Impossible Engineering ouvre une fenêtre dans le monde surprenant de la France du XVIIe siècle et éclaire une ½uvre singulière de l'ingénierie entrepris de donner l'état technique par la conquête de la nature.
The Canal du Midi, which threads through southwestern France and links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was an astonishing feat of seventeenth-century engineering--in fact, it was technically impossible according to the standards of its day. Impossible Engineering takes an insightful and entertaining look at the mystery of its success as well as the canal's surprising political significance. The waterway was a marvel that connected modern state power to human control of nature just as surely as it linked the ocean to the sea. The Canal du Midi is typically characterized as the achievement of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a tax farmer and entrepreneur for the canal. Yet Chandra Mukerji argues that it was a product of collective intelligence, depending on peasant women and artisans--unrecognized heirs to Roman traditions of engineering--who came to labor on the waterway in collaboration with military and academic supervisors. Ironically, while Louis XIV and his treasury minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert used propaganda to present France as a new Rome, the Canal du Midi was being constructed with unrecognized classical methods. Still, the result was politically potent. As Mukerji shows, the project took land and power from local nobles, using water itself as a silent agent of the state to disrupt traditions of local life that had served regional elites. Impossible Engineering opens a surprising window into the world of seventeenth-century France and illuminates a singular work of engineering undertaken to empower the state through technical conquest of nature.
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