Abstract: This article presents information on economist Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play in the field of economics. In England, his model nation, Le Play noted with regret the disappearance of numerous rural communities and small individual properties, and marked a diminishing sense on the part of large landowners and manufacturers, of personal responsibility for the condition of those in their service. Social harmony and stability were, he thought, endangered by such a change. In 1837, at the invitation of a rich Russian landowner, M. Anatole Demidoff, Le Play made a scientific study of the carboniferous soils of Donetz, situated on the Don between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov. The first great work which appeared from the pen of Le Play was "Les Ouvriers Européens," published at the expense of the State from the Imperial Press, in large folio, in 1855, at the time of the first French International Exhibition. This work contained thirty-six of the most representative out of three hundred family monographs compiled by the author from personal observation during his travels since 1829.

　　Subjects: ECONOMISTS; LANDOWNERS; EMPLOYEE ownership; PRODUCER cooperatives; LES Ouvriers Europeens (Book); LE Play, Frederic, 1806-1882