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Les guerres du blé - Une éco-histoire écologique et géopolitique
344 pages, Paperback
Published September 12, 2024
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 3, 2025
Une théorie historique intéressante et éclairante sur un aspect somme toute peu connu, mais déterminant pour la période considérée (XVIIeme-XXeme siècles).
Quelques assertions et argumentations m'ont cependant parues un peu légères, et j'ai parfois trouvé que l'auteur a tendance à réduire des enchaînements complexes d'événements complexes en les expliquant uniquement par l'angle du blé.
Quelques assertions et argumentations m'ont cependant parues un peu légères, et j'ai parfois trouvé que l'auteur a tendance à réduire des enchaînements complexes d'événements complexes en les expliquant uniquement par l'angle du blé.
October 2, 2024
The book impresses by its scope, the depth and width of the author’s sources and its ability to never sheepishly follow the interpretation of least resistance.
Unfortunately for all its lofty goals, the book fails to deliver the absolute uppercut one could have hoped.
The main issue is probably that Stanziani often simply fails to convince. Very counterintuitive points are stated as fact and barely defended. For instance, the idea that French colonies are crucial in the 20th century for the metropole’s wheat supply is not even back up by a single statistic.
What’s even worst is that the author often plays fast and loose with the arguments drawn from the literature. For instance, he equates the French monarchy multi-secular recourse to foreign capital via its Swiss and Italian clearing houses with the single bond floated by Catherine II on the Amsterdam market. One has to wonder how often the author similarly bent the truth to support his points.
Finally, the last two chapters are just lazy journo-level. We barely speak about wheat any more, just agriculture in general, the poor reader is bombarded with soulless numbers extracted from international reports and thrown without a care in the world by an all-knowing historian with a serious G*d complex.
So, yeah, I’m disappointed.
Unfortunately for all its lofty goals, the book fails to deliver the absolute uppercut one could have hoped.
The main issue is probably that Stanziani often simply fails to convince. Very counterintuitive points are stated as fact and barely defended. For instance, the idea that French colonies are crucial in the 20th century for the metropole’s wheat supply is not even back up by a single statistic.
What’s even worst is that the author often plays fast and loose with the arguments drawn from the literature. For instance, he equates the French monarchy multi-secular recourse to foreign capital via its Swiss and Italian clearing houses with the single bond floated by Catherine II on the Amsterdam market. One has to wonder how often the author similarly bent the truth to support his points.
Finally, the last two chapters are just lazy journo-level. We barely speak about wheat any more, just agriculture in general, the poor reader is bombarded with soulless numbers extracted from international reports and thrown without a care in the world by an all-knowing historian with a serious G*d complex.
So, yeah, I’m disappointed.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews