Curtis, Daniel R. (Author)
Campopiano, Michele (Author)
One problem with scholarly research into land reclamation has been the tendency to concentrate on two questions -- how and why did it happen -- leading to an over-emphasis on technological innovation and demographic and commercial pressures. This has obscured far more fascinating and significant questions -- what were the social consequences of pre-industrial land reclamation? What kinds of societies emerged as a result of land reclamation? These questions are addressed through a comparative historical analysis of two cases of land reclamation in the medieval period: the peat lands of Holland (the Netherlands) and the Po Valley plains (Northern Italy). In the paper it is shown that medieval land reclamation led to the emergence of two very divergent societies, characterised by a number of different configurations in; (a) power and property structure, (b) modes of exploitation, (c) economic portfolios, and (d) commodity markets. In the final section, a further question is considered. To what extent were either of these societies inherently better configured to negate the potentially disastrous effects of land reclamation on the natural environment? In the conclusion it is argued that more `equitable' and `freer' pre-industrial societies were better placed to deal with the consequences of environmental degradation than those marked by polarisation and repression -- even when those polarised societies made recourse to capital investment in technology.
...More
Book
Squatriti, Paolo;
(2013)
Landscape and Change in Early Medieval Italy: Chestnuts, Economy, and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB001420355/)
Book
Erasmo D'Angelis;
Massimo Gargano;
Elisabetta Novello;
(2021)
La grande storia d'Italia raccontata dall'acqua
(/isis/citation/CBB639703806/)
Book
Tommaso Vidal;
(2023)
Grano amaro. Lavoro contadino nell'Italia nord-orientale (secoli XIII-XV)
(/isis/citation/CBB239254025/)
Book
Candace Fujikane;
(2021)
Mapping abundance for a planetary future : Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i
(/isis/citation/CBB429240012/)
Article
Patrick Gautier Dalché;
(2015)
Géographie et histoire à la fin du Moyen Âge: Paulin de Venise et Pietro Ranzano
(/isis/citation/CBB794257216/)
Article
O'Donnell, Ronan;
(2014)
Conflict, Agreement and Landscape Change: Methods of Enclosure of the Northern English Countryside
(/isis/citation/CBB001450347/)
Book
Candace Fujikane;
(2021)
Mapping abundance for a planetary future : Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i
(/isis/citation/CBB655094992/)
Book
Cheri Register;
(2016)
The Big Marsh: The Story of a Lost Landscape
(/isis/citation/CBB581722460/)
Article
Fleischer, Alette;
(2005)
The Garden behind the Dyke: Land Reclamation and Dutch Culture in the 17th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001031666/)
Book
Roberta Biasillo;
(2023)
Una storia ambientale delle Paludi pontine. Terracina dall’Unità alla bonifica integrale (1871-1928)
(/isis/citation/CBB997610073/)
Book
Piero Pedrocco;
(2022)
Il governo delle acque nel nord est italiano
(/isis/citation/CBB225692671/)
Chapter
Alvise Fiume;
(2022)
Problematiche attuali nella pianificazione dei bacini di bonifica: Agricoltura, esondazioni, territorio
(/isis/citation/CBB019816325/)
Article
Elisabetta Novello;
James C. McCann;
(July 2017)
The Building of the Terra Firma: The Political Ecology of Land Reclamation in the Veneto from the Sixteenth through the Twenty-first Century
(/isis/citation/CBB322729907/)
Book
Vittorio Bevivino;
(2021)
Il territorio pontino attraverso i secoli: bonifiche realizzate e progetti inattuati. L'assetto idrografico nella cartografia e nelle cronache
(/isis/citation/CBB969740465/)
Chapter
Laura Carnevali;
Maria Martone;
(2023)
Il territorio pontino nei disegni di Leonardo da Vinci
(/isis/citation/CBB409501759/)
Article
Alexis Lycas;
Masato Hasegawa;
Shih-Pei Chen;
(2022)
The Production of Geographical Knowledge in Medieval China
(/isis/citation/CBB539365858/)
Article
Yearwood, Peter J.;
(2014)
Continents and Consequences: The History of a Concept
(/isis/citation/CBB001421509/)
Article
Dalché, Patrick Gautier;
(2012)
De Pétrarque à Raimondo Marliano: aux origines de la géographie historique
(/isis/citation/CBB001200450/)
Article
Linda Rui Feng;
(2022)
Producing Knowledge of the Sea Coast: Marine Life and a Tang Geographical Miscellany of Lingnan
(/isis/citation/CBB898481566/)
Book
Herren, Michael W.;
Ister, Aethicus;
(2011)
The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister: Edition, Translation, and Commentary
(/isis/citation/CBB001201556/)
Be the first to comment!