19

This article analyses how the confrontation of theory and practice in Turgot’s administration policies gave rise to a production of knowledge in relation to public economics (notably land administration with a view to improving transport). It is based on a little known case, the navigation of the Charente, using many unpublished archives. Contrary to what posterity would have us believe, there is no divide between “Turgot the theoretician,” a pro-liberal thinker, and “Turgot the administrator,” a proponent of state intervention, but one Turgot striving to rationalize centralized administration by taking into account economic management, engineers’s expertise and the knowledge of specific obstacles on the territory administered, thus carrying out a dual aim of efficiency and equity. Turgot is a far cry from a deterritorialised economic science.