Forests in Revolutionary France


Book Description

This book investigates the bitterly contested development of environmental conservation in France from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, suggesting that conflicts over forests between the state, landowning elites, and the peasantry not only reflected escalating demand for this most vital of natural resources but also shaped the country's revolutionary struggles.




Forest Rites


Book Description

In May 1829, strange reports surfaced from the Ari ge department in the French Pyrenees, describing male peasants, bizarrely dressed in women's clothes, gathering in the forests at night to chase away state guards and charcoal-makers. This was the raucous War of the Demoiselles, a protest against the national French Forest Code of 1827, which restricted peasants' rights to use state and private forests. Peter Sahlins unravels the fascinating story of this celebrated popular uprising, and in his telling captures the cultural, historical, and political currents that swept the countryside during France's July 1830 Revolution. Sahlins explains how and why the Ari ge peasants drew on the practices and rituals of folk culture, as well as on a revolutionary tradition, to defend their inherited rights to the forest. To explore these rights and their expression, he delves into the history of forest management, of peasant conflicts with the state, and of popular culture--particularly the disputed history of Carnival and of local rituals of justice. Sahlins also sheds new light on the French revolutionary tradition and the "Three Glorious Days" of July 1830. The drama and symbolism of the War of the Demoiselles have inspired nearly a dozen plays, novels, films, and even a comic book. Using the concepts of anthropology and cultural studies as transport, Sahlins moves from this rich event to the wider worlds of peasant society in France. Focusing on the years from 1829 to 1832 but drawing on sources since the sixteenth century, his book should captivate social, cultural, and political historians of both early modern and modern Europe.




Forests in Revolutionary France


Book Description

This book investigates the economic, strategic, and political importance of forests in early modern and modern Europe and shows how struggles over this vital natural resource both shaped and reflected the ideologies and outcomes of France's long revolutionary period. Until the mid-nineteenth century, wood was the principal fuel for cooking and heating and the primary material for manufacturing worldwide and comprised every imaginable element of industrial, domestic, military, and maritime activity. Forests also provided essential pasturage. These multifaceted values made forests the subject of ongoing battles for control between the crown, landowning elites, and peasantry, for whom liberty meant preserving their rights to woodland commons. Focusing on Franche-Comté, France's easternmost province, the book explores the fiercely contested development of state-centered conservation and management from 1669 to 1848. In emphasizing the environmental underpinnings of France's seismic sociopolitical upheavals, it appeals to readers interested in revolution, rural life, and common-pool-resource governance.







The French Revolution as a Moment of Respatialization


Book Description

The French Revolution has primarily been understood as a national event that also had a lasting impact in Europe and in the Atlantic world. Recently, historiography has increasingly emphasized how France’s overseas colonies also influenced the contours of the French Revolution. This volume examines the effects of both dimensions on the reorganization of spatial formats and spatial orders in France and in other societies. It departs from the assumption that revolutions shatter not only the political and economic old regime order at home but, in an increasingly interdependent world, also result in processes of respatialization. The French Revolution, therefore, is analysed as a key event in a global history that seeks to account for the shifting spatial organization of societies on a transregional scale.




Nomad's Land


Book Description

During the nineteenth century, the development and codification of forest science in France were closely linked to Provence’s time-honored tradition of mobile pastoralism, which formed a major part of the economy. At the beginning of the century, pastoralism also featured prominently in the economies and social traditions of North Africa and southwestern Anatolia until French forest agents implemented ideas and practices for forest management in these areas aimed largely at regulating and marginalizing Mediterranean mobile pastoral traditions. These practices changed not only landscapes but also the social order of these three Mediterranean societies and the nature of French colonial administration. In Nomad’s Land Andrea E. Duffy investigates the relationship between Mediterranean mobile pastoralism and nineteenth-century French forestry through case studies in Provence, French colonial Algeria, and Ottoman Anatolia. By restricting the use of shared spaces, foresters helped bring the populations of Provence and Algeria under the control of the state, and French scientific forestry became a medium for state initiatives to sedentarize mobile pastoral groups in Anatolia. Locals responded through petitions, arson, violence, compromise, and adaptation. Duffy shows that French efforts to promote scientific forestry both internally and abroad were intimately tied to empire building and paralleled the solidification of Western narratives condemning the pastoral tradition, leading to sometimes tragic outcomes for both the environment and pastoralists.







Revolutionary France


Book Description

In this volume, one of the first to look at 'Revolutionary France' as a whole, a team of leading international historians explore the major issues of politics and society, culture, economics, and overseas expansion during this vital period of French history.







Mini-Forest Revolution


Book Description

For readers who enjoyed Finding the Mother Tree and The Hidden Life of Trees comes the first-ever book about a movement to restore biodiversity in our cities and towns by flipping empty lots, backyards, and degraded land into mini-forests. In Mini-Forest Revolution, author Hannah Lewis presents a compelling case that what the world needs is not a corporate-sponsored “Trillion Tree Campaign,” but instead a people-powered “plant a million mini-forests” effort. After all, nature is composed of functioning ecosystems, not tree plantations. Lewis presents the Miyawaki Method, a unique approach to reforestation devised by botanist Akira Miyawaki in response to Japan’s rapid post-war development. She explains the scientific basis for why Miyawaki-style mini-forest projects matter and how they work, including how biodiversity increases ecosystem productivity and resilience, how vegetation transforms solar energy into latent heat and releases it away from Earth, and the role of native climax species in replicating the composition of ancient forests. Lewis also explores the multi-faceted benefits of planting a mini-forest, including: • Cooling urban heat islands • Sequestering carbon • Building soil health • Increasing water retention in dry or degraded landscapes • Establishing wildlife corridors • Healing communities working to recover from trauma • Helping urban youth connect with nature Today, the Miyawaki Method is witnessing a worldwide surge in popularity as communities seek to restore degraded landscapes both urban and rural. Lewis shares the stories of mini-forests that have sprung up across the globe and the people who are planting them—from a young forest along the concrete alley of the Beirut River in Lebanon, to a forest that is recharging groundwater in Cameroon, to the backyard forest planted by tiny forest champion Shubhendu Sharma in India. Mini-Forest Revolution is complete with a step-by-step field manual for designing and planting a forest using the Miyawaki Method, with special attention to the process of developing a list of appropriate species and their respective proportions. No matter where you live, this book will inspire you to help organize a mini-forest project in your own community, and that may be one of the best decisions you can make.