Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade during the Eighteenth Century

Dependence upon grain deeply marked every aspect of life in eighteenth-century France. Steven Kaplan focuses upon this dependence at the point where it placed the greatest strain on the state, the society, and the individual-on the daily supply of grain and flour that furnished the staff of life. He reconstructs the history of provisioning in pre-industrial Paris and provides a comprehensive view of a culture shaped by the subsistence imperative.

Who were the agents of the provisioning trade...