Description: 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.
Review Quotes: "This exemplary work of historical geography presents an original interpretation of voluntary associations in French rural society during the nineteenth century that insured peasants against risk...a comprenhensive investigation...Although the empirical evidence for these generalizations is based on archival research in a single department, the book has broad scope and significance for historians as well as geographers...Baker's conjectures about the relationship between cultural change and associational life, which highlight the implications of secularization for attitudes towards risk and insurance, deserve a wide audience among historians of rural France." Ted W. Margardant, Journal of Historical Geography