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

by Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

• ISBN13: 9780521103121
• ISBN10: 0521103126
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In The Fruits of Revolution Jean-Laurent Rosenthal investigates two central questions 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 them in a number of local studies, yet usually they 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 of the impact of property rights on water control.

Table of Contents

List of tables, figures, and maps

Series editors' preface

Preface

Introduction

History And Economics

The French Revolution and French economic history

Institutions and economic growth

Drainage and Irrigation

A survey of water control projects

Relative prices and the supply of water control

Drainage in the Pays d'Auge, 1700-1848: the weight of uncertain property rights

The development of irrigation in Provence, 1700-1860: the French Revolution and economic growth

Property Rights and Litigation under Absolutism

The weaknesses of monopoly power

Settlement, litigation, and the drainage of marshes in England and France, 1600-1840

Conclusion

Appendices

Bibliography

Index

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