Provincializing Global History : Money, Ideas, and Things in the Languedoc, 1680-1830

**A microhistory of eighteenth-century systemic change that places ordinary French lives alongside global advances** __Provincializing Global History__ explores the subtle transformation of the coastal province of the Languedoc in the eighteenth century. Mining a wealth of archival sources, James Livesey unveils how provincial elites and peasant households unwittingly created new practices. Managing local political institutions, establishing new credit systems, building networks of natural historians, and introducing new plants and farm machinery to the region opened up the inhabitants of the province to new norms and standards. The practices were gradually embedded in daily life and allowed the province to negotiate the new worlds of industrial society and capitalism. A microhistory of eighteenth-century systemic change that places ordinary French lives alongside global advances

Provincializing Global History explores the subtle transformation of the coastal province of the Languedoc in the eighteenth century. Mining a wealth of archival sources, James Livesey unveils how provincial elites and peasant households unwittingly created new practices. Managing local political institutions, establishing new credit systems, building networks of natural historians, and introducing new plants and farm machinery to the region opened up the inhabitants of the province to new norms and standards. The practices were gradually embedded in daily life and allowed the province to negotiate the new worlds of industrial society and capitalism. A micro-history of eighteenth-century systemic change that places ordinary French lives alongside global advances. This book explores the eighteenth-century modernization of the coastal province of Languedoc. Mining a wealth of archival sources, James Livesey unveils how provincial elites, peasant households, and local political institutions began to implement such changes as establishing a credit system and building networks of natural historians and agronomical innovators who introduced new plants and farm machinery to the region. These practices were gradually embedded in daily life and gave rise to connections between the province and the broader world