Olivier received the French agrégation in history and is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Toulouse. He was director of the CNRS research group FRAMESPA (Social history from the Middle Ages to today) from 2005-2013. He was elected Vice-President of International Relations at this university in June 2012.
Olivier specializes in small-scale industries (watchmaking, making eyeglasses, hat making) and in different models of economic development. His habilitation compared the French, Scandinavian, and Swiss cases of economic development in the 19th century. He has written a number of books and articles on these subjects, and created the concept of "soft industrialization", a process by which small production units, often in rural areas, played a large role in the industrialization of Continental Europe in the 19th century.
His current research focuses more specifically on the history of aviation and industrialization in France, Switzerland, and Scandinavia over the longue durée.
Une industrie à la campagne. Le canton de Morez entre 1780 et 1914, [An industry in the countryside: the town of Morez 1780-1914] Salins-les-Bains, musée des techniques et cultures comtoises, 2002, 131 p. Received the Lucien Febvre award for history.
With Natalie Petiteau and Sylvie Caucanas (ed.), Les Européens dans les guerres napoléoniennes [Europeans in the Napoleonic wars], Toulouse, Privat, 2012, 260 p.
(ed.), Histoire de l'armée de l'air et des forces aériennes françaises du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours [History of the French Air Force since the 18th century to the present], Toulouse, Privat, 2014, 552 p.
With Alain Cortat (eds.), Le profit dans les PME, perspectives historiques, XIXe-XXe siècles, Neuchâtel, Éditions Alphil - Presses universitaires suisses, 2014, 220 p.
Latécoère. A Hundred Years of Aeronautical Technology, Toulouse, Privat, 2017, 170 p.
1969. First Flight of the Concorde, Toulouse, Editions Midi-Pyrénéennes, 2018, 50 p.
With Rémy Pech (eds.), Histoire de Toulouse et de la métropole, Toulouse, Privat, 2019, 800 p.
1970. Airbus, naissance d'un géant industriel, Toulouse, Editions Midi-Pyrénéennes, 2020, 50 p.
(ed.), Le travail en Europe occidentale des années 1830 aux années 1930, Paris, Armand Colin, 2020, 420 p.
(ed.), Les avions Mauboussin. Une aventure technologique, industrielle et humaine, Toulouse, Privat, 2023, 176 p.
With Maurice Carrez, Histoire des pays nordiques XIXe-XXe siècle, Paris, Armand Colin, 2023, 400 p.
« The Airbus Project Consolidates the Choice of Toulouse as the French Capital of Civil Aeronautics (1917-1970s) », in Nacelles. Past and Present of Aeronautics and Space, n° 11, 2021. https://interfas.univ-tlse2.fr/nacelles/1380
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02612957/document [archive]/ American Heritage, November, 2019, Comparison of Aluminum Alloys from Aircraft of Four Nations Involved in the WWII Conflict Using Multiscale Analyses and Archival Study
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