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Cul de Sac : patrimony, capitalism, and slavery in French Saint-Domingue /Paul Cheney. "In the eighteenth century, the Cul de Sac plain in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, was a vast open-air workhouse of sugar plantations. This microhistory of one plantation owned by the Ferron de la Ferronnayses, a family of Breton nobles, draws on remarkable archival finds to show that despite the wealth such plantations produced, they operated in a context of social, political, and environmental fragility that left them weak and crisis prone. Focusing on correspondence between the Ferronnayses and their plantation managers, 'Cul de Sac' proposes that the Caribbean plantation system, with its reliance on factory-like production processes and highly integrated markets, was a particularly modern expression of eighteenth-century capitalism. But it rested on a foundation of economic and political traditionalism that stymied growth and adaptation. The result was a system heading toward collapse as planters, facing a series of larger crises in the French empire, vainly attempted to rein in the inherent violence and instability of the slave society they had built. In recovering the lost world of the French Antillean plantation, 'Cul de Sac' ultimately reveals how the capitalism of the plantation complex persisted not as a dynamic source of progress, but from the inertia of a degenerate system headed down an economic and ideological dead end."--Provided by the publisher. 2017. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 382:664.1
The first and second Arctic medals (1818-1876) : with biographies of their recipients /by Rear Admiral John A.L. Myres "In this new volume, The First and Second Arctic Medals (1818 to 1876), John Myres has concentrated entirely on the 19th Century and, following the same general format as the earlier volumes, has further expanded it to explore the lives and careers of the almost 2500 men who had been awarded the First Arctic Medal (with some 1500 medals being issued), as well as the 155 men who were awarded the Second Arctic Medal. This was because it had dawned on him that much more justice should have been done to all the intrepid souls who had explored, searched and sometimes died in the Arctic in the 19th Century. Whilst the 'mini-bios' of some of the more senior officers were reasonably detailed, many of the sailors and marines had often only been described in a single (usual short) sentence, and he felt that they deserved that more about their lives and careers should be recorded, not least because this would allow descendants, researchers and collectors, a fuller framework upon which to build if they wished to explore them further. As well as tracing the background and career of each man, and sometimes his death, this new volume also includes, wherever possible, a record of all the other medals and awards that he received in addition to his Arctic Medal. As the middle of the 19th Century involved much naval activity and conflict, many of the Arctic Medallists acquired a number of other campaign medals, as well as Long Service and Good Conduct Medals, and this record will be useful to collectors and descendants who possess these and can now link them to the men 's service in the Arctic."--Provided by the publisher 2019. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 737.2.23(98)