Agriculture and the Great Depression

Gérard Béaur, CNRS & Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France.Francesco Chiapparino, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, Dises (Dipartimento di scienze economiche e sociali), Ancona, Italy.

"All of the chapters provide detailed and sophisticated analyses and have substantial bibliographiesto enable interested readers to research topics further. As the editors pointed out, most ofthe publications on agriculture in the Great Depression deal with the United States, thus one aimof this bookwas to providemore information about the crisis’ effects in many other countries, andthe book succeeds in doing so...[F]or anyone interested in the agricultural effects of the Great Depression, this book is essential."Mark B. Tauger, Economic History Review"What [the book] elaborates and makes it worth using, are the differences between countries and, what I consider its main value, the importance of the longer-term view. The interaction between the Great Depression and agriculture becomes clearer, better understood and seen by analysing it from a historical perspective –in this case from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Moreover, it applies the historical approach also to the development of agriculture itself and, therefore, it brings to the forefront the role of the maturation of agriculture and its declining profitability, as well as its importance for the nation-state."Anton Schuurman, Historia Agraria"The book provides...both an extremely valuable contribution to the economic history of agriculture in the Great Depression and an invitation to social and cultural historians to shed more light on the experiences, the struggles and the perceptions of rural people trying to come to terms with the repercussions of the crisis on their livelihoods, and to global, comparative and transnational historians to investigate the interconnections and currents on which the knowledge to combat the Great Depression traveled."Juri Auderset, Neuere und Neueste Geschichte"The book edited by Gérard Béaur fills a void that had not yet been filled in European rural history. Strangely, we lacked a work that comprehensively and extensively addressed the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s on European agriculture and rural societies."Lourenzo Fernández Prieto, Proposte e Ricerche"There is no doubt that the results of this collective research open new questions about the nature of the agrarian depression and its relationship to the creation of a new agri-food system in the thirties; And in the context of current conflicts and uncertainties, reading this book becomes a very suggestive tool to reflect on the consequences and future of the current agri-food model and its complex relationships with nature and the well-being of the world's population.Gabriel Jover Avellà, Proposte e Ricerche"The book represents a major advance in the analysis of the Great Depression, the most severe economic crisis until the interwar period and which massively affected humanity. It presents a multidimensional analysis of the crisis in the agricultural sector in Europe and the Americas."Katerina Brégianni, Etudes Rurales

• 1. Introduction – Agriculture and the Big Crash PART I The crisis in a long-term perspective 2. The Great Depression as Great Transformation? Global food regime crisis and (inter-)national transition pathways, 1925–39 3. Agricultural crisis in Spain (Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries) PART II The mechanisms of the crisis 4. The 1929 crisis from the perspective of a food-Importing country – The United Kingdom, 1928–35 5. International markets, policy, and mobility. ‘Rural Italies’ in the 1930s recession 6. From boom to burst – Argentine’s primary sector and the 1930s Crisis 7. The effects of the Great Depression on the agricultural economy of the tobacco-exporting countries in South-eastern Europe 8. The 1929 crisis in Hungary’s dual agriculture 9. The impact of the crisis on the Polish agriculture (1929–35) PART III The crisis and the policies 10. Swedish agriculture and the crisis of the 1930s 11. Spanish agriculture and the Great Depression 12. Mexican agriculture in view of the crisis of the first globalization – Between the revolutionary crisis and the Great Depression (1914–29) 13. The problem of the wheat and the political answers to the agricultural crisis in France of the 1930s 14. Agriculture in Switzerland and the crises of the 1920s and 1930s 15. Conclusion – Agricultural crises and government responses during the interwar period in the Atlantic trading network