Histoire de l'agriculture, histoire de l'alimentation, histoire générale

Abstract

The history of agriculture is sector-based ; it only has an explicative value if considered as a component of general history. The question is therefore to know how to integrate the history of agriculture, and more generally of the agro-food system, into general history. The author's tendency is to define agro-food systems and models linked to production modes or socio-economic systems and he distinguishes four major historical periods qualified by a dominant model : pre-agricultural and primitive economics, pre-capitalist food, agricultural and domestic economics, marketable food economics within the framework of capitalist expansion, agro-industrial economics within a concentrated and internationalized capitalist system. In the second part, the author illustrates these remarks by analysing the relationship between the history of consumption and the history of agriculture during the 1880-1980 period.