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

The Fruits of Revolution examines the impact of revolution on French agricultural development.

Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (Author)

9780521392204, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 February 1992

236 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

"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

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]