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J. Renard (Ed.), La Vendee: un Demi-Siecle D’observation
d’un Geographe Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes,
Rennes, ISBN 2-7535-0075-4, 2004 (312pp., h20 pbk).
The Vendee, just to the south of the mouth of the riverLoire, is one of those regions of France that evokes astrong set of mental images, some of which remain validbut others were more appropriate in the past than in thepresent. In terms of political orientation, the Vendeeformed a major territory of counter-revolution and after1789, and continued to retain its leanings to the politicalright. It was an area of strong religious observance,contributing one of the pays pratiquant on the map ofFrench Catholicism. The Vendee remained an emphati-cally agricultural area, with sections of enclosed bocage
evoking the traditional rural landscapes of Brittany andother parts of northwestern France. Not surprisingly,industrial activity was poorly developed. Here was one ofthe ‘backward’ areas of the Hexagon of France.
Professor Emeritus Jean Renard taught rural geogra-phy at the University of Nantes from its creation in 1964to his retirement in 1999, devoting the whole of his careerto that institution and specialism. In 1975, he completedhis major thesis on Les evolutions de la vie rurale dans les
campagnes nantaises et les bocages vendeens. In subse-quent years he continued to undertake a large number ofrural projects, many of which were written up in localjournals that are not particularly accessible outsidewestern France. In his highly productive retirement,Jean Renard has not only written a textbook but also hasassembled a selection of his etudes vendeennes into asingle volume. A few years back, in the company of agroup of French ruralistes, I had the pleasure ofspending 2 days in the field with Monsieur Renard andI can testify that he knows every village, hamlet andcountry road like the proverbial back of his hand.
In fact, Renard’s discovery of the region extends backto 1956, enabling him to reflect on a full half century ofchange. His introduction to La Vendee he evokes thebackwardness of the area at that time; its narrow, tree-lined roads that made rapid travel impossible; its smallfarms and abundant livestock; its active Catholicism,and its fundamental rurality. In 17 essays, organizedunder five main headings (myths and realities, agricul-ture, industry, tourism, towns), Jean Renard outlineshow each of these conditions has changed. ‘La Vendee,
entre mythes et realites’ reveals the diversity of this partof France, extending from the dunes and marshes of theAtlantic coast to the old hard rocks of the interior, andforming a north/south zone of transition with respect tovernacular building styles. Almost a century ago, thegreat political geographer Andre Siegfried argued thatscattered farmsteads on large estates deep in the bocage
constituted a territory of right wing voting, whereasinhabitants of the marshlands, larger settlements andsmall-farm territory of southern Vendee were moreinclined to vote for the left. Recent elections reveal asimilar contrast one hundred years later, although left-wing support has strengthened not only in the south butalso around the main town of La Roche-sur-Yon.
The canton of Saint-Fulgent has served as a ‘fieldlaboratory’ for social geographers from Nantes to tracethe collapse of agricultural employment, retreat ofreligion, and modernization of rural lifestyles. Thenumber of farms in the Vendee declined from 43,000in 1955 (with fewer than a thousand over 50 ha) to only6700 in 2000, when 4100 exceeded 50 ha. Farm enlarge-ment was accompanied by drastic changes to the fabricof the bocage, with extensive areas undergoing plotconsolidation and the felling of hedgerows and copses.Over the past half century, rural industrialization(textiles, mechanical engineering, food processing) hada particular impact in the northeastern part of theVendee—closest to Nantes—and around La Roche-sur-Yon. Tourism now generates new sources of incomealong the coast and also on some farm holdings in theinterior. La Roche-sur-Yon and a number of smallerurban centres have emerged as vibrant service centres toenergize surrounding rural areas.
With the help of some excellent maps and a copiousbibliography, Jean Renard has demonstrated the dramaof socio-economic change and landscape transformationin the Vendee. His work is, of course, a case study butmany of his messages may be projected on to the biggerscreen of rural France, and arguably also on to that ofthe countrysides of the European Union as a whole.
Hugh CloutDepartment of Geography, University College London, 26
Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP,UK
E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.05.006
L. Sargisson, L. Tower Sargent, Living in Utopia: New
Zealand’s Intentional Communities, Aldershot, Ashgate,
ISBN 0-7546-4224-0, 2004 (227pp., £45.00 pbk).
Approaching this book, knowing little of NewZealand’s history of intentional communities, what
initially struck me was the utopian, Pakeha (European)desire to build a ‘better/great Britain’ in New Zealandthat marked the very colonization process (and itssubsequent discourses). However, Living in Utopia
eschews this broader argument to focus on those myriadsmall communities founded throughout New Zealand
ARTICLE IN PRESSBook reviews / Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005) 487–493 489
