Book Series Comparative Rural History Network- Publications, vol. 17

Stocks, seasons and sales

Food supply, storage and markets in Europe and the New World, c. 1600-2000

Wouter Ronsijn, Niccolò Mignemi, Laurent Herment (eds)

  • Pages: x + 224 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Illustrations:30 b/w, 23 tables b/w.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2019

  • € 80,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58509-3
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58510-9
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This volume presents a long-term history of the tools for regulating the rhythms and the seasonal patterns of the agricultural production. The contributing authors adopt different approaches and investigate cases from England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Mexico. The focus on the stocks and flows of grains and other foodstuffs raises new questions combining economic, social, political, and environmental issues in the study of agricultural markets and food policies.

Review(s)

“(...) the editors (being based in Ghent University, Bocconi University and CNRS Paris) are in as good a position as any to recruit an international team and I hope they will turn next to the pastoral economy.” (Eric Jones, in EH.Net, January 2020)

“Abschließend, ein großes Lob den Herausgebern für die straffe Ausrichtung der Beiträge sowie die professionelle Eindämmung von Beliebigkeit. Und ein noch größeres Dankeschön den Autorinnen und Autoren für die Lektüre ihrer bereichernden Beiträge.” (Martina Kaller, in Francia Recensio, 1, 2021)

« L’ouvrage offre de nombreux prolongements dans des champs connexes de recherche. » (Thomas DEPECKER, dans Le Mouvement sociale, 277, 2021, p. 195)

BIO

Wouter Ronsijn is postdoctoral researcher at the Bocconi University in Milan and at Ghent University. He does historical research on social inequality and mobility, and focuses on rural history.

Niccolò Mignemi is postdoctoral researcher, Equipe de recherches pour l’histoire du monde rural, CRH-EHESS. His research interests focus on agricultural development and modernization policies.

Laurent Herment is Chargé de recherche CNRS UMR 8558 CRH-CNRSEHESS.

Summary

This book presents ten case-studies by eminent scholars dealing with food supply, storage and markets from c. 1600 to c. 2000. Together they present a long-term history of the tools to regulate the rhythms and seasonal patterns of the food production and distribution process. How were the vast flows of staple food needed for metropolitan areas organised? What practical difficulties had to be overcome to preserve this food safely? Did people respond to price patterns in search for profit? Were governments successful in imposing regulation? In dealing with these issues, the contributing authors adopt different approaches and investigate cases from England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Mexico. The focus on the stocks and flows of grains and other foodstuffs raises new questions combining economic, social, political, and environmental issues in the study of agricultural markets and food policies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: stocks, seasons and sales
Wouter Ronsijn and Niccolò Mignemi

1. Landlords as rational investors? Grain storage on noble manors in the Rhineland area, 1650-1850
Friederike Scholten

2. Prices and seasons in late seventeenth-century England
Richard W. Hoyle

3. A case study of corn sales: Harston Manor’s corn book 1823-1842
Liam Brunt and Edmund Cannon

4. Production and provisioning: the Tumulto of 1692 in Mexico City
Pablo F. Luna

5. The need for wheat: the pre-industrial expansion of Vienna’s grain supply, 1800-1840
Jonas M. Albrecht

6. The respiration of Paris’ catchment area in the nineteenth century: stocks and flows
Laurent Herment

7. Urban development and local food production. Ability and inability of feeding growing cities by urban agriculture in nineteenth-century industrialising Belgium
Pieter De Graef

8. Between fearing shortage and stockpiling fresh fish: did the Venetian Republic have an environmental policy in the eighteenth century?
Solène Rivoal

9. Preventing subsistence crises: the state and granaries of abundance in Old Regime France
Gérard Béaur

10. Storage and financing of the French wheat market in the inter-war period
Alain Chatriot