| Review | Journal of Social History, 40.3

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| Review | Journal of Social History, 40.3 | The History Cooperative

REVIEWS

Histoire de la qualité alimentaire (XIXe–XXe siècle). By Alessandro Stanziani (Paris: Seuil, 2005. 440 pp.).
From genetically-modified crops to the European Union's definition of chocolate, debates on the quality of food are usually heated and invariably complex. Alessandro Stanziani, an historian and economist, uses nineteenth century controversies over the quality of wine, meat, milk, and butter to analyze the development of French pure food legislation from the regulation of individual markets to the law of 1905, which set the standards for the entire food industry. The legislation of 1905 was so effective that, in 1993, it was integrated into the European Union's codes on the quality of food. This scholarly study, based on a wide variety of original sources from court cases to commercial handbooks, offers important perspectives to historians but scant comfort to consumers. Whether in response to the dangers of a trichinosis epidemic or to the appearance of margarine on the market, French pure food legislation, argues Stanziani, was designed primarily to stabilize agricultural markets during a period of rapid expansion and intense competition. Only indirectly and secondarily did such legislation protect the consumer.	1
The originality of this study may not be immediately apparent to historians, unless they have a decided taste for macroeconomic theory. Dr. Stanziani is interested in how markets function, and he addresses his research to economists with the hope of convincing them of the value of historical analysis. Each section begins with a lengthy discussion of the relevant macroeconomic theories on the behavior of markets, followed by a detailed exploration of the archival records. From this juxtaposition of theory and history, the author draws a number of general conclusions. Among the most important are that the state is not monolithic in its goals or actions; that regional producers may have conflicting goals; and that what he terms the "economic actors", from wine producers and dairy farmers to wholesalers and café owners, do not always act rationally, (i.e. according to economic theory), but rather interpret information according to their perceptions and experience. These concepts may be novel to economic theorists, but they are familiar to historians.	. . .

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