Something of a Peasant Paradise?: Comparing Rural Societies in Acadie and the Loudunais, 1604-1755

Were Acadians better off than their rural counterparts in old regime France? Did they enjoy a Golden Age? To what degree did a distinct Acadian identity emerge before the wars and deportations of the mid-eighteenth century? In Something of a Peasant Paradise?, Gregory Kennedy compares Acadie in North America with a region of western France, the Loudunais, from which a number of the colonists originated.

Kennedy considers the natural environment, the role of the state, the economy, the seigne...