The Improbable Success of the Petit-Poitou Company, 1650-1720

Agency and Management at the Crossroads of Social and Environmental History

Bibliographic Data

ID4943126
AuthorsGregory Kennedy (Université de Moncton, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume59
Issue167
Pages275-291
Publication date2016-05-16
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCahiers de géographie du Québec (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-9766 • E-ISSN: 1708-8968
PublisherConsortium Erudit (PUBLISHER • CA)
DOI10.7202/1036358ar
OpenAlexW2496981262
LanguageEN
References cited10

The Petit-Poitou Company stands out as the first successful large-scale drainage enterprise in France. Created in 1640 by a group of local officials and landowners, by 1646 the Company had completed the operation of draining nearly 4,000 hectares of marshland for farming. This article examines the seventy years following this initial success in order to better understand how the Company overcame significant environmental, social, and political challenges to emerge as a stable and profitable enterprise. This success was highly improbable. Flood disasters, dissension amongst the associates, the actions of tenant farmers, and challenges from regional competitors all threatened to destroy its work. But the Company was able to learn from its early mistakes, build consensus internally, and defend itself from the legal attacks of its rivals through a flexible but firm leadership model and a solid understanding of territorial management and court patronage. This article is based on original research using the unique and previously little-known records of the General Assembly of the Petit-Poitou Company and proposes a more comprehensive view of this period of development for the Company. In other words, it offers a microhistorical analysis that can add to current debate about human agency in the environmental and social history fields

Agency (philosophy) · Archaeology · Business · Competitor analysis · Economics · Flood myth · Geography · Management · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics) · Engineering · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Marketing · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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