Paths of an Aggiornamento

History of Rural Economic and Social History in France from the 16th to the 18th Centuries

Abstract

The 'golden age' of French rural history, characterized by the hegemony of the histoire immobile since 1945, came to an end in the 1980s. Out of fundamental criticisms, a completely revised approach to rural societies in the past has emerged since the 1990s. The article outlines the conditions of both the crisis and the renaissance of French rural history. The new paradigm questions the image of the French peasant’s backwardness, passiveness and self-sufficiency. In contrast to this, the progressive, active and market-orientated strategies of rural women and men are highlighted mainly through the micro-historical reconstruction of the networks of the individuals. As a consequence, the image of the immobile French countryside is replaced by the notion of the various aspects of mobility within rural societies of the past.