The Fruits of Revolution: Property Rights, Litigation and French Agriculture, 1700-1860

by Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

Overview

In The Fruits of Revolution Jean-Laurent Rosenthal investigates two central issues in French economic history: to what extent did institutions hold back agricultural development under the Old Regime, and did reforms carried out during the French Revolution significantly improve the structure of property rights in agriculture? Both questions have been the subject of much debate. Historians have touched on these issues in a number of local studies, yet they usually have been more concerned with community conflict than with economic development. Economists generally have researched the performance of the French economy without paying much attention to the impact of institutions on specific areas of the economy. This book attempts to utilize the best of both approaches: it focuses on broad questions of economic change, yet it is based on detailed archival investigations into the impact of property rights on water control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521392204
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/28/1992
Series:	Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables, figures, and maps; Series editors' preface; Preface; 1. Introduction; Part I. History And Economics: 2. The French Revolution and French economic history; 3. Institutions and economic growth; Part II. Drainage and Irrigation: 4. A survey of water control projects; 5. Relative prices and the supply of water control; 6. Drainage in the Pays d'Auge, 1700–1848: the weight of uncertain property rights; 7. The development of irrigation in Provence, 1700–1860: the French Revolution and economic growth; Part III. Property Rights and Litigation under Absolutism: 8. The weaknesses of monopoly power; 9. Settlement, litigation, and the drainage of marshes in England and France, 1600–1840; 10. Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This book deserves a wide audience among scholars working at the intersection of economic, legal and political history." Reviews of Books

"Well documented, and fully informed with state-of-the-art economic analysis, this book provides an example of the very best that modern economic history has to offer." The Annalas of the American Academy

"It is Rosenthal's contention that it was the institutional improvements realized by the Revolution that in time permitted full access to technological change. From this point of view the events of 1789 brought France into the modern world. Nineteenth-century scholars will find this volume worthwhile reading for the information it provides about the economic history of the period." Leonore Loft, Nineteenth-Century French Studies

From the Publisher