1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Levasseur, Pierre Emile

LEVASSEUR, PIERRE EMILE (1828–  ), French economist, was born in Paris on the 8th of December 1828. Educated in Paris, he began to teach in the lycée at Alençon in 1852, and in 1857 was chosen professor of rhetoric at Besançon. He returned to Paris to become professor at the lycée Saint Louis, and in 1868 he was chosen a member of the academy of moral and political sciences. In 1872 he was appointed professor of geography, history and statistics in the Collège de France, and subsequently became also professor at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers and at the École libre des sciences politiques. Levasseur was one of the founders of the study of commercial geography, and became a member of the Council of Public Instruction, president of the French society of political economy and honorary president of the French geographical society.

His numerous writings include: Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la conquête de Jules César jusqu’à la Révolution (1859); Histoire des classes ouvrières en France depuis la Révolution jusqu’à nos jours (1867); L’Étude et l’enseignement de la géographie (1871); La Population française (1889–1892); L’Agriculture aux États-Unis (1894); L’Enseignement primaire dans les pays civilisés (1897); L’Ouvrier américain (1898); Questions ouvrières et industrielles sous la troisième République (1907); and Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l’industrie en France de 1789 à 1870 (1903–1904). He also published a Grand Atlas de géographie physique et politique (1890–1892).