David Todd

Holding a degree from Sciences Po and a PhD from the University of Cambridge, David Todd taught at Cambridge and King’s College London before joining the Sciences Po Centre for History in 2021. His research is concerned with the international aspects of French history and the transformations of the global economy between 1750 and 1914.

His main works have examined the dissemination of political economy, under the guise of free trade and protectionist ideologies, in the aftermath of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, in his book L’identité économique de la France. Libre-échange et protectionnisme (Paris: Grasset, 2008; English version: Free Trade and its Enemies in France, Cambridge University Press, 2015) and the informal aspects of French imperial expansion, in A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Princeton University Press, 2021).

He is currently working on a new history of political ideas and economic practices in the Mediterranean, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is especially interested in migrations between France and the Ottoman world, the practical aspects of transactions as revealed by legal sources, and micro-historical approaches to the transformation of Mediterranean economic life between 1750 and 1914.

David Todd teaches an undergraduate course on the political history of the nineteenth century in Paris and Reims and a postgraduate course on “The political economy of empires, 1700-2000”. He is also one of the coordinators of the Centre for History and Economics in Paris, a collaboration between Sciences Po and the Joint Center for History and Economics at Cambridge and Harvard, and chair of the academic advisory council of The Rothschild
Archive, London.

Writing a book, “French Empire: A Global History”, and a project on global silk routes in the 19th century.

• Lorenzo Bonomelli : « Orléaniste imperialism : French interventions in southern Europe and Latin America, 1830-1851 » ; 
• Émilie Pasquier : « Eaux, réseaux et capitaux : une histoire des infrastructures hydrauliques urbaines en Égypte (1817-1957) »  ;
• Natalia Lanko : « The political economy of the British Levant Company, c. 1750-1825 ».

• Histoire du XIXe siècle ; 
• French Empire : A Global History ; 
• Approaches in Modern History (Historiography)

• Leverhulme Prize (2012),
• Gyorgy Ranki Prize (2023)

• Contributor to the London Review of Books, 
• Member of the scientific committee of Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales

• David Todd. Un empire de velours: l'impérialisme français au XIXe siècle. 2022. ⟨hal-03881167⟩
• David Todd. Retour sur l'expédition d'Alger. Histoire globale de la France coloniale, 2022. ⟨hal-03881387⟩
• François Jarrige, David Todd. Produire et consommer à la française ? Circulations textiles et insertion dans le capitalisme mondial (1780-1930). D'ici et d'ailleurs. Histoires globales de la France, La Découverte, pp.137-173, 2021. ⟨hal-03545341⟩
• David Todd. Un passager clandestin : la colonisation informelle dans l’historiographie des empires français. Outre-Mers Revue d'Histoire, 2021, N° 410-411 (1), pp.17-36. ⟨10.3917/om.211.0017⟩. ⟨hal-03532920⟩
• David Todd. A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton University Press, 2021, 9780691171838. ⟨hal-03535613⟩
• David Todd, François Jarrige. Produire et consommer "à la française": circulations textiles et insertion dans le capitalisme mondial (1780-1930). D'ici et d'ailleurs. Histoires globales de la France contemporaine, 2021. ⟨hal-03538124⟩
• David Todd, Singaravelou Pierre, Rahul Markovits. Une "franco-mondialisation" impériale? Domination informelle et expansion coloniale. D'ici et d'ailleurs. Histoires globales de la France contemporaine, 2021. ⟨hal-03538117⟩
• David Todd. An Imperial Nation-State : France and its Empires. The Oxford World History of Empires, 2 vol., 2021, 9780197532768. ⟨hal-03538111⟩
• David Todd. Out of Lockdown in the Age of Revolutions: Jean-Baptiste Say’s Tour of Britain, 1814. 2021. ⟨hal-03538108⟩
• David Todd. JamesLivesey, Provincializing global history: money, ideas, and things in the Languedoc, 1660–1830 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020. Pp. x+214. ISBN 9780300237160 Hbk. £35).. The Economic History Review, 2020, 73 (4), pp.1210-1212. ⟨10.1111/ehr.13036⟩. ⟨hal-03532942⟩
• David Todd, Alexia Yates. Public Debt and Democratic Statecraft in in Nineteenth-Century France. A World of Public Debts : A Political History, 2020. ⟨hal-03538083⟩
• David Todd. Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956 . By Martin Thomas and Richard Toye. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. x+278. $55.00.. Journal of Modern History, 2019, 91 (3), pp.685-687. ⟨10.1086/704408⟩. ⟨hal-03535500⟩
• David Todd. Champagne Capitalism : France in Nineteenth-Century Globalization. Money and Markets : Essays in Honour of Martin Daunton, 2019, 9781783274451. ⟨hal-03538077⟩
• David Todd. Beneath Sovereignty: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Internationalism in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Law and History Review, 2018, 36 (1), pp.105-137. ⟨10.1017/S0738248017000530⟩. ⟨hal-03532738⟩
• David Todd. L’avènement d’un marché mondial : les échanges de marchandises et de capitaux, 1815-1914. Histoire du monde au XIXe siècle, 2017. ⟨hal-03538073⟩
• David Todd. 1860 : l’autre pays du libre-échange. Histoire mondiale de la France, 2017. ⟨hal-03538069⟩
• David Todd. Remembering and Restoring the Economic Ancien Régime: France and Its Colonies, 1815–1830. War, Demobilization and Memory, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.203-219, 2016, 9781137406484. ⟨10.1007/978-1-137-40649-1_12⟩. ⟨hal-03538061⟩
• David Todd. Response to three reviews of Free Trade and its Enemies in France, 1814-1851. 2016. ⟨hal-03538055⟩
• David Todd. Retour sur l’expédition d’Alger : les faux-semblants d’un tournant colonialiste français. Monde(s). Histoire, Espaces, Relations, 2016, 10 (2), pp.205. ⟨10.3917/mond1.162.0205⟩. ⟨hal-03532860⟩
• David Todd. Free Trade and Its Enemies in France, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015 ; 
• David Todd. Transnational projects of empire in France, c .1815– c .1870. Modern Intellectual History, 2015, 12 (2), pp.265-293. ⟨10.1017/S147924431400047X⟩. ⟨hal-03532598⟩
• David Todd. Free trade and its enemies in France, 1814–1851. Cambridge University Press, 2015, ⟨10.1017/CBO9781139568401⟩. ⟨hal-03535657⟩
• David Todd. L'émergence du libéralisme indien. La vie des idées, 2013. ⟨hal-03535941⟩
• David Todd. Review of Bertrand Blancheton and Hubert Bonin, eds., La croissance en économie ouverte (XVIIIe-XXIe siècles): hommages à Jean-Charles Asselain. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2009. 466 pp. ISBN 978- 90-5201-498-2.. H-France Review [en ligne], 2011. ⟨hal-03536008⟩
• David Todd. A French Imperial Meridian, 1814-1870. Past and Present, 2011, 210 (1), pp.155-186. ⟨10.1093/pastj/gtq063⟩. ⟨hal-03532501⟩
• David Todd. De la théorie aux pratiques du libre-échange : la propagation d’une doctrine d’économie politique par John Bowring, 1820-1860. La société civile : savoirs, enjeux et acteurs en France et en Grande-Bretagne, 1780-1914, 2011. ⟨hal-03538032⟩
• David Todd. Hogoshugi to Kokusaijiyushugi : Sono tanjyo to hukyu 1789-1914. KAN, History, Environnement, Civilization, 2011. ⟨hal-03538026⟩
• David Todd. Recension de Jonathan Parry, The Politics of Patriotism : English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830-1886, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.. Les Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales, 2010. ⟨hal-03536019⟩
• David Todd. John V. Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes : The Political economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689-1900, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007. 2009. ⟨hal-03537935⟩
• David Todd. The impôts arabes: French Imperialism and Land Taxation in Colonial Algeria, 1830-1919. Studies in the History of Tax Law, vol. 3, 2009, 9781841139562. ⟨hal-03538021⟩
• David Todd. La liberté, la nation et les colonies dans la pensée économique de Charles Dupin. Charles Dupin (1784-1873) : ingénieur, économiste, pédagogue et parlementaire du Premier au Second Empire, 2009. ⟨hal-03537998⟩
• David Todd. Compte-rendu de François Denord, Néo-libéralisme version française : histoire d’une idéologie politique, Paris, Demopolis, 2007. 2009. ⟨hal-03537966⟩
• David Todd. Jennifer Pitts, Naissance de la bonne conscience coloniale : les libéraux français et britanniques et la question impériale (1770-1870), Paris, L’Atelier, 2008. Le Mouvement social, 2009, pp.143-5. ⟨hal-03537946⟩
• David Todd. Recension de Peter Robb, Empire, Identity, and India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2007. 2009. ⟨hal-03536023⟩
• David Todd. The Stonemasons of Creuse in Nineteenth-Century Paris. French History, 2008, pp.132-133. ⟨10.1093/fh/crn078⟩. ⟨hal-03537914⟩
• David Todd. L'identité économique de la France. Grasset, 2008, 9782246711810. ⟨hal-03535728⟩
• David Todd. John Bowring and the global dissemination of tree trade. Historical Journal, 2008, 51 (2), pp.373-397. ⟨10.1017/S0018246X08006754⟩. ⟨hal-03532911⟩
• David Todd. Libre-échange ou protectionnisme ? Les Britanniques, la globalisation et la culture du libre-échange. 2008. ⟨hal-03537960⟩
• David Todd. Review of Jeff Horn, The Path not Taken : French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1830, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2006. Historical Journal, 2007, pp.765-767. ⟨10.1017/S0018246X07006358⟩. ⟨hal-03537983⟩
• David Todd. Before Free Trade: Commercial Discourse and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century France. Worlds of Political Economy : Knowledge and Power in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.47-68, 2004, 9781403932181. ⟨hal-03537991⟩
• David Todd. John Maynard Keynes, Les conséquences économiques de la paix. 2002. ⟨hal-03538135⟩