Power and Subsistence : The Political Economy of Grain in New France

Louise Dechêne

ISBN 10: 0773554912 / ISBN 13: 9780773554917

Edité par Mcgill-Queen's University Press Nov 2018, 2018

A propos de cet article

Neuware - Subsistence crops - the grains and other food items necessary to a people's survival - were a central preoccupation of the early modern state. In New France, the principal crop in question was wheat, and its production, consumption, exchange, and regulation were matters to which the government devoted sustained attention. Power and Subsistence examines the official measures taken to regulate the grain economy in New France, the frequency and nature of state interventions in the system, and the responses these actions provoked. Drawing on social and political perspectives and methodologies, this book brings rural and agricultural history into conversation with colonial political economy. Louise Dechêne shows that unlike in early eighteenth-century France, where the marketplace dominated and trade was transparent, the grain economy in New France was hypercentralized and government measures were increasingly harsh. Attentive to the conflicts arising between producers, merchants, consumers, and colonial administrators over the allocation of the harvest, Dechêne offers a revealing perspective on the operation of political power in a colonial setting. Lively, elegant, and wry, Power and Subsistence provides insight into the last era of French rule in North America - and, in part, how that era came to an end.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9780773554917

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Power and Subsistence : The Political Economy of Grain in New France
• Éditeur: Mcgill-Queen's University Press Nov 2018
• Date de parution: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0773554912
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780773554917
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• Édition: 3ème Édition
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 226 L x 150 H x 23 P (en millimètres) 226 millimètres de largeur par 150 millimètres de hauteur par 23 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 386 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Subsistence crops – the grains and other food items necessary to a people's survival – were a central preoccupation of the early modern state. In New France, the principal crop in question was wheat, and its production, consumption, exchange, and regulation were matters to which the government devoted sustained attention. Power and Subsistence examines the official measures taken to regulate the grain economy in New France, the frequency and nature of state interventions in the system, and the responses these actions provoked. Drawing on social and political perspectives and methodologies, this book brings rural and agricultural history into conversation with colonial political economy. Louise Dechêne shows that unlike in early eighteenth-century France, where the marketplace dominated and trade was transparent, the grain economy in New France was hypercentralized and government measures were increasingly harsh. Attentive to the conflicts arising between producers, merchants, consumers, and colonial administrators over the allocation of the harvest, Dechêne offers a revealing perspective on the operation of political power in a colonial setting. Lively, elegant, and wry, Power and Subsistence provides insight into the last era of French rule in North America – and, in part, how that era came to an end.

À propos de l'auteur

Louise Dechêne (1928–2000) was professor in the Department of History at McGill University and author of Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal and Power and Subsistence: The Political Economy of Grain in New France. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award and twice winner of the Lionel-Groulx Prize.