together. An extensively documented and lucid synthesis, Downtown will be indispensable to whoever

takes on that daunting task.

Richard Harris

School of Geography and Geology

McMaster University

Canada

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2003.11.011

Reynauld Abad (Ed.), Le grand marche: L’approvisionnement alimentaire de Paris sur l’ancien regime;

Fayard, Paris, 2002, 1030 pages, paperback (e45)

One of my early memories of Paris four decades ago was the bloody carcasses, scented fruits and exotic

cheeses of Les Halles displayed under the gaint glass umbrellas of the city’s wholesale market designed

by Baltard a hundred years previously. Nothing remains of that vibrant quartier today, but the life of the

market porters is evoked by a modern sculpture in the soaring gothic church of Saint-Eustache. Historian

Reynauld Abad’s masterly study of Le grand marche is less concerned with the site of the central

markets in the capital than with the mechanisms that enabled food to be produced in the countryside and

transported there. He argues that grain supplies to Paris have been studied in great detail over the past

quarter century, notably by Steven Laurence Kaplan, but with the exception of wine, other foodstuffs

have received little attention. With the help of taxation levies, market registers, and official statistics on

supply and consumption, Abad examines the arrival and distribution of three main groups of food in the

city: meat, fish, and other foodstuffs (vegetables, fruit, dairy goods, poultry, wine, spices, and exotic

goods). Then he estimates the economic importance of providing food supplies to Paris in the total

economy of the nation.

The book begins with an excellent chapitre d’exposition of a hundred pages that reviews the

geographical, juridical and administrative framework of the ancien regime, highlighting the privileged

situation of Paris with respect to rivers, linking canals, and improved highways. Transportation by water

was of paramount significance, with specialist quays operating at a dozen points along the Seine within

the city. To provide cheap food was essential to avoid social unrest in the capital, and graded supply

zones were established for numerous commodities. Such a logical, and if necessary flexible, system was

open to fraud and duplicity, with present-day smugglers having nothing to teach their 18th-century

counterparts. Abad concludes this long chapter with some cautionary remarks about the possible

limitations of ‘official’ statistics and ensures that he employs a range of other sources to validate his

messages.

The bulk of this book of more than 1000 pages and about 625,000 words is composed of detailed

studies of the three main groups of foodstuff. Animals walked from the provinces on the hoof, were

selected by Parisian butchers, and slaughtered on site. Different regions were called upon according to

season and agricultural systems, with supply zones for beef cattle (Lower Normandy, Charolais, Massif

Central) largely differing from those supplying sheep (Paris Basin, Upper Normandy) and pigs

(Limousin, sections of Normandy). In general terms, Parisians ate more than their country cousins, with

consumption being related to social class and tending to increase as the 18th century advanced. Meat was

Book reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 130 (2004) 179–214 195

often served in suburban drinking shops (guingettes) at weekends, perhaps in the style of the modern

barbecue. By virtue of religious observance (and 166 jours maigres each year), fish occupied a more

significant place in the diet of pre-Revolutionary Parisians than in those of their current counterparts,

with fresh fish being rushed from estuaries and coastal ports in Normandy and the Somme; salted, dried

and marinated fish being moved from harbours along the Channel, North sea and Atlantic coasts; oysters

(that were consumed by the general population and not just the elite) being brought from Lower

Normandy; and freshwater fish being taken from the Seine and other convenient rivers and from lakeland

pays such as the Sologne and the Gatinais. Three spatial ‘rings’ may be recognised around the capital in

order to classify the remaining foodstuffs. Market gardens and orchards flourished in the suburbs, often

suffering nocturnal thefts. Dairy goods, game, and poultry originated from greater distances such as the

outer Paris Basin and Lower Normandy. Finally, the third ‘ring’ involved merchants and wholesalers

arranging supplies of wine, spice, olive oil, hard cheese and cured ham from distant parts of the kingdom

and beyond.

In a brief conclusion of 20 pages Abad insists that Paris commanded a national market of food supply,

with areas close to the capital supplying a wide range and large volume of goods, and remote provinces

usually sending relatively small quantities of expensive foods. The overwhelming importance of

Normandy and the Ile-de-France in nourishing the capital comes across repeatedly; indeed, the

economies of these regions were heavily dependent on the food needs of hungry Parisians. Not

surprisingly, Abad evokes the spatial principles of Von Thunen but rightly tempers their exposition of the

discipline of distance with a fine appreciation of spatial variations in the local resource base, changing

transport opportunities, differences in commercial acumen, and the ever-present and constantly evolving

dynamic of competition. He includes an array of original maps and diagrams to complement his

immensely scholarly—and strikingly geographical—book. After reading Le grand marche I shall

appreciate textbook maps adorned with cows, cheeses, chickens and grapes all the more, and shall

certainly enjoy my next meal in Paris.

Hugh Clout

Department of Geography

University College London

UK

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2003.11.010

Jerry Brotton (Ed.), The renaissance bazaar from the Silk Road to Michelangelo; Oxford University

Press, Oxford, 2002, xii þ 243 pages, hardback (£16.99)

As historians, we often bear the burden of past historical categorization. Terms like the ‘middle ages’

or the ‘scientific revolution’ carry much ideological baggage, even while providing useful interpretive

material. The ‘Renaissance’ is one such loaded category. We owe our present use of the term

Renaissance to nineteenth-century historians such as Michelet and Burchardt, whose interests were

nationalistic and ideological, as well as historical. Burchardt particularly saw the transformation of

Europe in the individualistic mentality of independent Italian tyrants, not unlike his beloved

Book reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 130 (2004) 179–214196