This work is both the creation of a historian, an economist, and a sociologist. The author, indeed, gives us, in detail, a portrait of deep France, the rural areas where the essence of the land can be felt even through the pages of this book. Peasant revolts, famines, grain crises, wheat, and cereals.
A country dying of hunger? Yes and no, a country that is behind its time? That is somewhat French, one of the characteristics of our national character. A people at once very conservative and at the same time quick to revolt. A revolution for wheat? We are not far from it.
The merit of this book is to provide us with a psychological state of French society, to describe the economic exchanges, to show us the peasantry, and to clearly distinguish the breeders from the peasants. Two who one might think are similar and yet are very different.
The Identity of France, its deep roots, its privileged situation with its waterways irrigating its lands has made it a major player on the European stage, which at the same time has earned it the jealousy of its neighbors.
Fernand Braudel, with his book, opens up the perspective of another vision of our history with the importance of the economy in the social life of a country. Just a few bad harvests can lead to famine, and all the art of economists is to avoid shortages which explains the trade exchanges on the wheat and other cereals markets.
We learn, here the author becomes an agronomist, how fallow lands, crops are managed, the timing for sowing, harvesting and enriching the soil.
Thierry Jan
