Farming Communities in the Western Alps, 1500–1914

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Traditional Alpine Communities and the Challenge of Long-Term Sustainability

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 1-8

3. The Landholding Basis of Alpine Farming

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 9-31

4. Face to the Sun: The Exploitation of Arable

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 33-58

5. The Ties that Bind: Livestock Farming in the Western Alps, 1500–1914

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 59-88

6. The Alps and Their Common Property Rights: Resource, Regulation and Exploitation 1500–1914

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 89-105

7. The Alpage of the Western Alps, 1500–1914: Europe’s Highest Cultural Landscape

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 107-127

8. Coping with Risk, 1500–1914

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 129-150

9. Epilogue

   • Robert Dodgshon

   Pages 151-154

10. Back Matter

    Pages 155-168

    PDF

This monograph explores traditional farming communities in French-speaking areas of the western Alps for the period 1500-1914 and how they endured in such an environment despite the many problems and risks which it posed for their subsistence and welfare. Using an extensive amount of archival material drawn from the relevant regional archives, the book presents a great deal of fresh data. Its central theme is how such communities responded to the opportunities and challenges presented by the highly variegated environment of their setting. The view taken is that their strategies of exploitation stressed diversity and flexibility, mapping the highly varied ecologies and resource opportunities of their setting into these strategies by spreading livelihood and risk as widely as possible. This interpretative framework is developed across all the book's themes: landholding, arable and livestock sectors, use of the commons and, finally, how communities coped with climate-based risks.

The book appeals to geographers, historians, environmental scientists and everyone interested in traditional farming communities and their long-term challenges.

• Alpine Cultural Ecology
• Traditional Livestock Husbandry
• Environmental History of the Alps
• Social and Economic History of the Alps
• Farming Communities in the Alps
• Mountain Farming
• Alpage
• Commons in the Alps
• Weather Based Risks
• Climate Based Risks
• historical geography
• Environmental Geography

• Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK

  Robert Dodgshon

Robert A. Dodgshon is an emeritus professor of Aberystwyth University. He was formerly Gregynog Professor of Geography and Director of the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth. He has written extensively on historical geography. His previous work includes books on geographical change, Europe and on farming communities in the Scottish Highlands and Islands during the medieval and early modern period. He has long had a particular interest in the livelihoods and strategies by which mountain communities generally ensured stability. As well as being a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, he is also a Fellow of the British Academy.

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