On both sides of the Franco-Swiss border, a shared technical culture has given rise to industrial activities as diverse as watchmaking, automobiles, mechanics, eyewear and microtechnology. The historians, geographers, economists and practitioners who have collaborated on this book have accepted the challenge of interdisciplinary confrontation to examine the role of economic elites and the State in industrialisation, the forms taken by inter-company relations, the place of a large leading firm within a regional network of SMEs, the mechanisms of innovation, and the role of institutions in the crystallisation and functioning of productive territories. This exploration of the near and distant past of the Jura Arc's production systems sheds light on the present in a region where industry is undergoing major upheaval as a result of globalisation.