Overview

The elemental power of food politics has not been fully appraised. Food marketing and consumption were matters of politics as much as economics as England became a market society. In times of dearth, concatenations of food riots, repression, and relief created a maturing politics of provisions. Over three centuries, some eight hundred riots crackled in waves across England. Crowds seized wagons, attacked mills and granaries, and lowered prices in marketplaces or farmyards. Sometimes rioters parleyed with magistrates. More often both acted out a well-rehearsed political minuet that evolved from Tudor risings and state policies down to a complex culmination during the Napoleonic Wars. 'Provision politics' thus comprised both customary negotiations over scarcity and hunger, and 'negotiations' of the social vessel through the turbulence of dearth. Occasionally troops killed rioters, or judges condemned them to the gallows, but increasingly riots prompted wealthy citizens to procure relief supplies. In short, food riots worked: in a sense they were a first draft of the welfare state. This pioneering analysis connects a generation of social protest studies spawned by E.P. Thompson's essay on the 'moral economy' with new work on economic history and state formation. The dynamics of provision politics that emerged during England's social, economic and political transformations should furnish fruitful models for analyses of 'total war' and famine as well as broader transitions elsewhere in world history.

Full Product Details

9780754665816

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Politics of Provisions is well-produced... It deserves to be widely read and known. It will be of particular interest to historians interested in the evolution of markets and the role of institutions and in the social and economic history of industrializing England.' EH.Net '... an outstanding book.' International Review of Social History 'The work has many strengths, not least the long perspective it provides on this important subject.' Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte 'This is an outstanding volume, crucial for those with interests in crowd politics, protest, and the nature of the marketplace but also colleagues with interests in issues such as the nature of power, representation of the poor, and contemporary understandings of community... Bohstedt's book is a triumph.' Journal of British Studies

Author Information

John Bohstedt is Professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, and author of Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790-1810.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available