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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 The individualism of the French peasantry during the nineteenth century has frequently been asserted as one of its most striking characteristics. In this 1999 book, Alan Baker challenges this orthodox view and demonstrates the extent to which peasants continued with traditional, and developed new, forms of collective action. He examines representations of the peasantry and discusses the discourse of fraternity in nineteenth-century France in general before considering specifically the historical development, geographical diffusion and changing functions of fraternal voluntary associations in Loir-et-Cher between 1815 and 1914. Alan Baker focuses principally upon associations aimed at reducing risk and uncertainty and upon associations intended to provide agricultural protection. A wide range of new voluntary associations were established in Loir-et-Cher - and indeed throughout rural France - during the nineteenth century. Their historical geography throws new light upon the sociability, upon the changing mentalités, of French peasants, and upon the role of fraternal associations in their struggle for survival. 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....
