Search

Book reviews Dulce Freire and Pedro Lains (Eds.). An Agrarian History of Portugal, 1000-2000: Economic Development on the European Frontier. Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2017, 347 pp. Benedita Câmara Annie Antoine (Ed.). Agricultural Specialisation and Rural Patterns of Development. Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, 303 pp. Piet van Cruyningen Guido Alfani and Cormac Ó Gráda (Eds.). Famine in European History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 325 pp. Xavier Cussó Segura Marc Badia-Miró, Vicente Pinilla and Henry Willebald (Eds.). Natural Resources and Economic Growth: Learning from History. Abingdon/New York, Routledge, 2015, 374 pp. Sara Torregrosa Hetland Niccolò Mignemi. Coopératives et mondes agricoles: France et Italie (1880-1950). Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 337 pp. Miguel Cabo Domingo Gallego, Luis Germán y Vicente Pinilla (Eds.). Estudios sobre el desarrollo económico español. Dedicados al profesor Eloy Fernández Clemente. Zaragoza, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016, 408 pp. Santiago M. López-García Ricard Garcia Orallo. La terra a subhasta. Crisi, endeutament i despossessió al món rural català de finals del segle xix. Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2015, 644 pp. Samuel Garrido Lluís Serrano Jiménez. Tancar la terra: Pràctiques de propietat i dinàmiques socials (Catalunya, 1850-1910). Girona, Documenta Universitaria/Associació d’Història Rural de les Comarques Gironines, 2016, 324 pp. Antonio Miguel Linares Luján Jordi Planas Maresma. Francesc Torras Sayol (1868-1936): Un propietari conservador al capdavant de l’acció cooperativa. Barcelona/Valls, Fundació Roca i Galès/Cossetània Edicions, 2016, 102 pp. Josep M. Pons-Altés Josep Joan Mateu González. Enginyers i regants: El Canal d’Aragó i Catalunya (1896-1940). Lleida, Universitat de Lleida/Patronat Josep Lladonosa, 2017, 256 pp. Carles Sanchis Ibor Gladys Karina Sánchez Juárez. Los pequeños cafeticultores de Chiapas: Organización y resistencia frente al mercado. Tuxtla Gutiérrez, CESMECA-UNICACH, 2015, 225 pp. Albert Folch David Sowell. Medicine on the Periphery: Public Health in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870-1960. Lanham, Lexington Books, 2015, 205 pp. Mikel Astrain Pablo Alonso González. El Antipatrimonio: Fetichismo y dominación en Maragatería. Madrid, Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2017, 326 pp. Guadalupe Jiménez Esquinas Marcel Mazoyer y Laurence Roudart. Historia de las agriculturas del mundo: Del Neolítico a la crisis contemporánea . Oviedo, KRK, 2016, 1.073 pp. Cristóbal Gómez Benito

In the early modern period the viability of large-scale drainage projects implemented by courtiers, officials, or merchants could be endangered by litigation or violent conflicts with landlords, commoners, cities, or water boards whose interests were harmed by the implementation of such projects. A comparison between the Dutch Republic, England, and France shows that the Dutch had developed institutions to deal with this efficiently. State patents for drainage granted compensation to all parties involved and precluded long drawn-out lawsuits. When large-scale drainage began in England and France from c. 1600 onwards, these states had no experience with drainage regulation. They had to find their way by trial and error. In England this led to lawsuits and riots by commoners that ruined several drainage schemes. The decentralized nature of the Dutch state turned out to be an advantage. Dutch politicians and entrepreneurs were used to compromises, and solutions could be adapted to local circumstances. In more centralized England and France this was more difficult to achieve. The Dutch also profited from the fact that territorial lords had already abolished common rights of usage in the coastal provinces in the late middle ages, thus removing an important source of conflict.

The rural history of the former country of Flanders (Belgium) has been intensively studied, in the last few decades especially by Ghent professors Erik Thoen and Eric Vanhaute and their collaborato...