All of the agricultural pressure groups in early modern France were important in shaping the evolution of French farming in this century. The transformation of an isolated peasantry into highly efficient agricultural producers, the role of the state in influencing agricultural modernization, and the place of the European community in French political and agricultural life have been affected by an increasingly complex network of organizations that are the subject of Cleary's book. Their history and geography is a revealing indicator of the social, cultural, and economic evolution of rural...

All of the agricultural pressure groups in early modern France were important in shaping the evolution of French farming in this century. The transformation of an isolated peasantry into highly efficient agricultural producers, the role of the state in influencing agricultural modernization, and the place of the European community in French political and agricultural life have been affected by an increasingly complex network of organizations that are the subject of Cleary's book. Their history and geography is a revealing indicator of the social, cultural, and economic evolution of rural...

This book provides a lucid introductory overview of the principal problems and changes that have affected the French peasantry since 1789. Dr. Moulin examines the social, economic, and cultural evolution of the peasantry as a subsistence economy that has been replaced by commercialized, capitalist farming, and looks at the political consequences of the dramatic relative decline in the numerical importance of the French rural sector. Regional variations are discussed, and the impact of changes in education, diet, and housing analyzed in a lucid account, translated by anglophone experts on the...