The Peasants of Languedoc

by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, John Day (Translator)

       Hailed as a pioneering work of
      "total history" when it was published in France in 1966, Le Roy Ladurie's
      volume combines elements of human geography, historical demography, economic
      history, and folk culture in a broad depiction of a great agrarian cycle,
      lasting from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. It describes the conflicts
      and contradictions of a traditional peasant society in which the rise in
      population was not matched by increases in wealth and food production.
      "It presents us with a great study of rural history, an analysis of economic change and a description of a society
in movement that has few equals."
-- Washington Post Book World
"It is without any doubt one of the most important, if not the most important, monograph of the French Annales school of socio-economic
historians written in the last decade." -- Canadian Historical Review
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, France, European History, Medieval, Anthropology, Academic

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie was a French historian whose work is mainly focused upon Languedoc in the ancient regime, particularly the history of the peasantry.

Emmanuel Ladurie was professor at the Collège de France and, since 1973, chair, department of history of modern civilization. He has had a distinguished career, serving as Administrateur Général of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (1987-94); member of the Institute (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences); Agrégé of the University, Doctor of Letters; Commander of the Legion of Honor (1996); and has taught at the universities of Montpellier, the Sorbonne, and Paris VII. Dr. Ladurie is the author of many historical works, including Les Paysans de Languedoc (1966), Histoire du Climat depuis l'An Mil (second ed., 1983), Montaillou, village occitan (1975), Le Territoire, de l'Historien (2 vols., 1973, 1978), Le Carnaval de Romans, 1579-1580 (1980), L'Etat royal (1987), L'Ancien Regime (1991), Le Siècle de Platter (1995), and Saint-Simon, le systeme de la Cour (1997).

Reviews

[Nadia]

Sub-par reading experience, not as good as Novick's That Noble Dream. Surprisingly not enough about the peasants.

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is a true triumph of historical methodology, using an incredibly wide range of highly technical legal and court documents to reconstruct what Ladurie calls a "total history" of the province of Languedoc. Unfortunately, it is also kind of boring. Obviously the primary purpose of a scholarly text is not to be "interesting" in the same way that a novel is, but the information presented within does need to feel like it has some bearing on the work's overall argument. There are moments - the last chapters on millenarian peasant revolutions in the 17th and early 18th centuries - where it grabbed me, but there were also multiple pages on the different sorts of grain grown by peasants over the centuries (rye into wheat into barley, if you were wondering) and I am just not entirely sure how much we gain from knowing this. It does show a change in the wealth of the peasants, sure, but the same thing can be discovered by looking at farm plot size, without having to also explain the exact differences between the qualities of the three types of bread you make with each of these grains. It is insane this book was ever written at all, with the sheer degree of source work that Ladurie did, but I am also not particularly surprised no one has done it with another province of France or something.

[Philipp Abele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book when you're interested about the long-term changings of rural population in early modern times. This old book shows very well the correlations of increasing/declinig population between 15th and 18th century and ownership/properties on the countryside. I have the highest respect for such work, working over historical data of passed centuries for years and trying to translate results to people of our age. One can learn a lot about agrarian cycles and the way of living in the early modern times (not only in the rural area of the Languedoc!).

[Karen E Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic of French rural history that I can finally say I’ve read. It was an important book in its day, but rather dated now.

[Armistead B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly the most riveting book but a great source nonetheless. Recently I've really enjoyed agricultural economic history and this book is exactly that.

[Anthony Zupancic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great example of "histoire totale" in the tradition of the Annales school of history. Demography at its most thorough and convincing. Ladurie belabors points, but it's in the aim of achieving totality and thoroughness. The analysis is intermixed with his conception of peasant mentality and their day to day experience. It's dense, but if you want an idea of the effects of population or the lives of French peasants in Languedoc during the 16th century, I can't imagine a better source.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les Paysans de Languedoc est un des grands chefs oeuvres de l'ecole des annales bourrees de statistiques et des tableaux. Il reussit surtout parce qu'il suit rigoreusement la formule de Michelet: c'est a dire parce qu'il nous donne un image remarquable du vecu d'autrefois d'un peuple.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 5 out of 5]

It takes a historian of Le Roy Ladurie's genius to make this remote subject not only readable, but enormously entertaining and enlightening. The study is a classic: one of the few which rightly deserves that label.

[Paulm · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the Annales....it's the Annales. Total history?.....not really. Pretty good though.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

College reading list.