Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 116

This volume is the ninth to appear in the Bibliothèque d’Histoire Rurale series of the Association d’Histoire des Sociétés Rurales and edited by Jean-Marc Moriceau of the University of Caen. Working with his geographer colleague, Philippe Madeline, Professor Moriceau has drawn together texts arising from a number of seminar presentations at the Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines (Pôle Rural) during 2003–2004 and the proceedings of a small conference held at Saint- Christophe-en-Brionnais in October 2004. The result is a fascinating collection of twenty papers by historians, geographers and other social scientists who examine the development of livestock husbandry in various regions of France (especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), and highlight changes and challenges arising during the past quarter century. The editors provide a general introduction to the book plus an excellent bibliography of publications on livestock husbandry in France, with particular emphasis on cattle rearing. Overview articles, source materials, specialist journals and the great regional monographs by historians and geographers are listed to assist further study.

The first cluster of five papers includes a thorough discussion of the notion of agricultural specialisation by Annie Antoine who emphasises the importance of improved communications and growing urban demands for meat and milk toward the end of the ancien régime and throughout the nineteenth century, especially following the construction of the railway network. Reading this paper reminded me of the nineteenth-century cartes gastronomiques that placed sketches of dairy cows, hens, vines and other products on the appropriate section of the maps of France. Maps and diagrams are found in abundance in most chapters of Acteurs et espaces but are curiously absent from Antoine’s overview. In the next chapter I was reminded of another form of nineteenth-century iconography that displayed differing cattle breeds. Bernard Denis outlines how important efforts were made to enhance cattle breeding from the 1880s onwards and how the spatial distribution of cattle breeds changed substantially over the subsequent hundred years. Bertrand Vissac picks up this aspect of the changing agricultural geography of France in a later chapter.

Methods of research are explored by geographer Armand Frémont who presents an account of his research itinerary that began in the 1950s in the Pays de Caux and expanded into a major doctoral thesis on livestock rearing across the whole of Normandy. Frémont stresses his debt to earlier geographers and to his doctoral patrons, as well as discussing the strengths and weaknesses of using official agricultural statistics and undertaking interviews in the field. His doctorate summarized the historical evolution of livestock farming in the province, placed animal husbandry into the context of Norman society, and highlighted its spatial variations across a broad stretch of country from the Cotentin peninsula to the Pays de Bray. Finally, Frémont reveals how livestock farming has declined over the past quarter century and, widening his gaze, identifies three types of countryside in Normandy: areas where commuting to urban employment is significant; those where modernised agriculture is vibrant; and others where rural depopulation and decline of local services continue apace.

The second part of the book focuses on a dozen case studies that emphasize the diversity of livestock husbandry in France. Olivier Fanica demonstrates the existence of urban cow keeping in and around Paris during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and reveals how this phenomenon disappeared as long-distance milk supplies were brought by rail. Bernard Garnier shifts the focus from milk to meat, analysing the movements of cattle ‘on the hoof’ to the slaughterhouses and market halls of the capital. Cheese making enters the discussion in Eric Bourdessoule’s account of pastoral life on the high pastures of the Cantal and in Jacques Rémy’s study of livestock rearing in the Alpine Tarentaise. Very different environments are introduced by François Spindler, who shows how animal husbandry was once important on the rich lowland of Alsace (but has declined massively since 1970), and by Fabrice Poncet, who analyses the impact of dairy specialization around Isigny and in other parts of western Normandy. Eugène Calvez reveals the dramatic impact of food-processing corporations on the structure and organisation of dairying in western France, Michaël Bermond summarizes changes in farm structure and production between 1970 and 2000 with the help of some fine coloured maps derived from detailed statistical analysis. The final cluster of papers moves to the Roannais-Brionnais area of central-eastern France, showing how cattle rearing became increasingly important during the nineteenth century, land-use patterns changed from mixed farming to permanent grass, and local markets coordinated the dispatch of cattle to other areas for fattening and to Lyons and Paris for slaughter and distribution to butchers’ shops. Jean-Paul Diry draws this attractive volume to a close by sketching how ruralité has taken on new meanings in our own time with farming being just one of many activities to occur in the French countryside. His challenging overview makes a useful connection back to Frémont’s ideas expressed earlier in the book. Acteurs et espaces provides further evidence of the vitality of rural research and communication at the University of Caen, and will be appreciated by those concerned with French agriculture – and the countryside more widely – past, present and future.