| The Life and Death of Industrial Languedoc, 1700-1920 Contributor(s): Johnson, Christopher H. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0195045084 ISBN-13: 9780195045086 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA OUR PRICE: $232.65 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 1995 Annotation: The Life and Death of Industrial Languedoc looks at one of the earliest examples of a region and an industry (woolen textiles) that had successfully mechanized only to submit, in the later nineteenth century, to the ravages of deindustrialization. In contrast to the explanations of both economic "realists", who attribute deindustrialization to market forces and economic geography, and regional nationalists, who see a betrayal of Lower Languedoc by its bourgeoisie whose investments took the easy path to the vine rather than staying the course with industry, Johnson shows that woolens production remained vital through mid-century. The dimension that must be added, he argues, is the political. Workers in Languedoc developed a powerful labor and democratic socialist movement against an intransigent class of employers. That movement rocked the region, as well as the nation, from 1848-1851. Dramatic as it may have been, this upheaval also proved to be the catalyst stimulating the disfavor of the French state and the consumer alike, and the ineluctable process of decline set in. By 1920, Lower Languedoc clung tenuously to a single-crop economy, the ubiquitous vine. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Business & Economics | Economic History - Business & Economics | Industries - General - History | Europe - France |
| Dewey: 338.476 |
| LCCN: 94029309 |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6.32" W x 9.26" (1.45 lbs) 336 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In this seminal book, Christopher Johnson writes a full-scale study of the rise and decline of industrialization in the Bas-Languedoc region of France. Working within a broad 200-year frame, Johnson examines the process of how and why a successful industrial region transformed itself to agriculture. Johnson is primarily interested in de-industrialization, which sets him apart from previous historians who have studied regions only in terms of the growth toward industrialization. |