Peasant Country in Motion: History of Rural Economic and Social History in France from the 18th to the 20th Centuries

The paper recalls the late rise of French historians’ interest for the countryside: They first considered juridical conditions, then peasant life and agricultural production. From 1945 to 1975, the ruling model of the Annales led to the ambition of a ‘total history’, grounded on economic and time series analysis. This produced a great number of monographs on many regions of France. A general synthesis was published in 1975. But afterwards this model was questioned and research interests changed. The second part of the paper describes the main themes of present research about rural economy, peasant behaviour and their participation in political life. The paper is mainly restricted to the French works about the period 1750 to 1914. The paper recalls the late rise of French historians’ interest for the countryside: They first considered juridical conditions, then peasant life and agricultural production. From 1945 to 1975, the ruling model of the Annales led to the ambition of a ‘total history’, grounded on economic and time series analysis. This produced a great number of monographs on many regions of France. A general synthesis was published in 1975. But afterwards this model was questioned and research interests changed. The second part of the paper describes the main themes of present research about rural economy, peasant behaviour and their participation in political life. The paper is mainly restricted to the French works about the period 1750 to 1914