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Print, Politics and Trade in the French Atlantic
The Labottière Family as Eighteenth-Century Cultural Brokers
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2024
About this book
The epic histories of the French Revolution, Enlightenment, and colonialism in the West Indies, told through the history of one family.
The Labottières were the largest printing and bookselling dynasty in eighteenth-century Bordeaux. From the 1680s to the sale of their business in 1794 three generations of this family acted as major cultural brokers in this booming Atlantic port, serving the rapidly expanding commercial and legal sectors with books, pamphlets, and newspapers.
The lives and businesses of this family are heavily entwined with the histories of the Enlightenment, French colonialism in the West Indies, and the French Revolution. We find the final generation, welcoming the Revolution, printing a pro-revolutionary newspaper that framed the revolts in Haiti and Martinique in pro-revolutionary terms. They would come to establish their shop as a Jacobin centre and, along with their workers and journalists, navigated the forces of popular censorship and state control. However, despite these activities, the Labottière printing and bookselling enterprise would, eventually, be destroyed by the very Revolution it had supported.
Through this lively microhistory of the Labottières, Jane McLeod presents the important role played by the flourishing Atlantic port economy in supporting the expansion of printing and bookselling. Furthermore, from McLeod's extensive archival research into over thirty members of the Labottière family, emerges a new understanding of the role played by printers and booksellers in the spreading of the ideas and concerns that underpinned some of the landmark social, cultural and political changes of the eighteenth century.
The Labottières were the largest printing and bookselling dynasty in eighteenth-century Bordeaux. From the 1680s to the sale of their business in 1794 three generations of this family acted as major cultural brokers in this booming Atlantic port, serving the rapidly expanding commercial and legal sectors with books, pamphlets, and newspapers.
The lives and businesses of this family are heavily entwined with the histories of the Enlightenment, French colonialism in the West Indies, and the French Revolution. We find the final generation, welcoming the Revolution, printing a pro-revolutionary newspaper that framed the revolts in Haiti and Martinique in pro-revolutionary terms. They would come to establish their shop as a Jacobin centre and, along with their workers and journalists, navigated the forces of popular censorship and state control. However, despite these activities, the Labottière printing and bookselling enterprise would, eventually, be destroyed by the very Revolution it had supported.
Through this lively microhistory of the Labottières, Jane McLeod presents the important role played by the flourishing Atlantic port economy in supporting the expansion of printing and bookselling. Furthermore, from McLeod's extensive archival research into over thirty members of the Labottière family, emerges a new understanding of the role played by printers and booksellers in the spreading of the ideas and concerns that underpinned some of the landmark social, cultural and political changes of the eighteenth century.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Jane McLeod
JANE MCLEOD is Associate Professor of History at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Reviews
This important book confirms that we must definitively reject the traditional view according to which the French provincial presses would have known only a long period of crisis during the 18th century, crushed by Parisian and foreign competition, even if it must be admitted that the success of the Labottières was quite exceptional, and that they were above all great booksellers and businessmen, and modest printers.
Ce grand livre confirme qu'il faut définitivement rejeter la vision traditionnelle selon laquelle les presses provinciales françaises n'auraient connu qu'une longue période de crise au cours du xviiie siècle, écrasées par la concurrence parisienne et étrangère, même s'il faut avouer que la réussite des Labottière fut tout fait exceptionnelle, et qu'ils furent avant tout de grands libraires et des hommes d'affaires, et de modestes imprimeurs. --- In spite of the wealth of details about the various Labottière family members and the content of the works they printed and imported for sale, the book is easy to read because McLeod carefully articulates the goal of each chapter. Her interpretive work on how the Labottières, their editors, and printers navigated printing and selling the ideas of the Enlightenment and the changing politics of the French revolutionaries is fine and detailed.
Ce grand livre confirme qu'il faut définitivement rejeter la vision traditionnelle selon laquelle les presses provinciales françaises n'auraient connu qu'une longue période de crise au cours du xviiie siècle, écrasées par la concurrence parisienne et étrangère, même s'il faut avouer que la réussite des Labottière fut tout fait exceptionnelle, et qu'ils furent avant tout de grands libraires et des hommes d'affaires, et de modestes imprimeurs. --- In spite of the wealth of details about the various Labottière family members and the content of the works they printed and imported for sale, the book is easy to read because McLeod carefully articulates the goal of each chapter. Her interpretive work on how the Labottières, their editors, and printers navigated printing and selling the ideas of the Enlightenment and the changing politics of the French revolutionaries is fine and detailed.
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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List of Illustrations
viii -
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Acknowledgments
x -
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List of Abbreviations
xi -
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Introduction
1 -
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Chapter 1 Building a Printing and Bookselling Dynasty in an Atlantic Port
13 -
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Chapter 2 Shipping Books from Paris and Abroad: The Labottière Bookselling Businesses
42 -
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Chapter 3 The Labottière Printing House: An Information Hub
87 -
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Chapter 4 The Labottières as Agents of the French State
126 -
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Chapter 5 From Policemen to Policed: The Labottières as Victims of Repression
147 -
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Chapter 6 Beyond Books: Textiles, Sugar and the Martinique Connection
174 -
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Chapter 7 Framing the French Revolution in Martinique and Saint-Domingue in the Journal de Bordeaux, 1790–1793
206 -
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Chapter 8 Promoting the French Revolution in Bordeaux
241 -
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Chapter 9 Crisis and the Collapse of the Labottière Firm
272 -
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Conclusion
293 -
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Appendix: Labottière Family Tree
302 -
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Bibliography
310 -
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Index
341
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
July 8, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781805433521
Original publisher:
Boydell Press
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781805433521
Keywords for this book
Labottière; Bookselling; Atlantic economy; Enlightenment; Bordeaux; French Revolution; Printing; Publishing history; Eighteenth-century Bordeaux; Labottière family; Maritime economy; French provincial printing; Bookselling in early modern Europe; Credit in book trade; Bordeaux port economy; Print culture; Bordeaux Guild; Censorship in eighteenth-century France; Labottière newspaper Affiches
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
