Michael B. Miller is Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University.

"Michael Miller ... is able to breathe life into [the store's] ambitious owners and directors, pile its counter high with goods mundane and exotic, and people its aisles with obsequious clerks and glittering-eyed shoppers... [He] has written an absorbing study that can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in modern techniques of mass selling or in French culture before World War I."--Jean T. Joughin, Business History Review "Michael Miller has written a book that is both fascinating and original, about a large department store and its place not only in business history, but in the history of French society, culture, and bureaucracy."--Eugen Weber, The Times Literary Supplement

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction3INew Stores19IIThe "Grand Magasin"48Merchandise and the Mass Market48Finance and Purchasing53Organization58IIIThe Boucicauts75Building Organization Men: The Base77Building Organization Men: Management112Ritualization121Entrepreneurial Roles and Business Change127IVThe Directors130Faithful Continuators130Members of a Single Family143VSelling Consumption165An Eighth Wonder166A Way of Life178VISelling the Store190Ambivalence and Hostility190A Model Community215Conclusion231Appendix241Bibliography245Index259