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Informationen zum Autor Alan K. Baker was born in Birmingham, UK in 1964. After graduating from the University of Reading in 1991, he endured a series of increasingly unpleasant jobs, culminating in a nine-month stint as a meat-packer in a Sheffield sausage factory, which served to increase his fascination with the macabre and outlandish. Since 1997, he has published a number of books on the paranormal and popular history, which have been translated into seven languages. Klappentext Using meticulous archival research! Alan Baker challenges the orthodox portrayal of nineteenth-century French peasants as individualists and examines the extent to which they both continued with traditional forms of community action and developed new forms of collective action. More specifically! he examines the development and spread of voluntary associations in Loir-et-Cher! on the southwestern margin of the Paris Basin. He focuses on associations aimed at reducing risk and uncertainty (mainly livestock insurance associations! mutual aid societies! and volunteer fire brigades)! and on associations intended to provide agricultural protection. Zusammenfassung In this 1999 book! Alan Baker has put together a comprehensive study of voluntary associations in a French region in the nineteenth century. In doing so he challenges the orthodox portrayal of nineteenth-century French peasants as individualists and examines the extent of their involvement in traditional! and new! forms of collective action. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface; 1. Peasants and peasantry in nineteenth-century France; 2. The theory and practice of fraternal association in nineteenth-century France; 3. Loir-et-Cher during the nineteenth century: period, place and people; 4. Insurance societies; 5. Mutual aid societies; 6. Fire-fighting Corps; 7. Anti-Phylloxera syndicates; 8. Agricultural associations; 9. Synthesis: conclusions, comparisons and conjectures.
