Summary The treatment of long-term agricultural transformation remains a lively topic for historians. Much debate arose when agricultural development patterns were discovered that did without a dominant, production-oriented cereal crop, even when it was accompanied by livestock farming. Joan Thirsk hoped to conclude this debate by putting forward the hypothesis that such "alternative agriculture" was the farmers' way of responding to the difficulties caused by periods of low agricultural prices. This theory stirred up controversy and arguments both for and against. The contributions to this volume take this hypothesis seriously and attempt to assess its validity. Examining a large number of "alternative agricultures" over the long term, from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, they discuss the issues encountered in tracing the links between the spread of alternative crops, such as fruits and vegetables, flowers, and industrial crops, and the general economic environment, across a vast swathe of territory stretching from Flanders to Spain and from France, through Italy and Switzerland, as far as Russia. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 'Alternative Agriculture' or 'Alternative Crops'? Gérard Béaur The Debate 2. Another Look at Joan Thirsk's Concept of 'Alternative Agriculture', and why it should be Discarded Jean-Pierre Poussou Alternative Agriculture and the City 3. Turnips, Flax and Clover. Farmers, Landowners and Agricultural Innovation in the Antwerp Countryside in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Michael Limberger 4. Adapting to the Paris Market. Montreuil in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century Hervé Bennezon 5. Was Horticulture an Alternative Crop? A Case Study of Parisian Horticultural Suburbs in the Nineteenth Century Nadine Vivier Crises and Alternative Agriculture 6. War, Crisis and Alternative Crops. The Case of Hemp and Wine in France from 1688 to 1697 Caroline Le Mao 7. Was there an Agrarian Crisis in the Mediterranean World during the Last Third of the Seventeenth Century? The Case of the Island of Majorca Gabriel Jover Avellà 8. The Battle of Wheat and Other Fascist Battles in Italian Agriculture (1920s-1930s) Niccolò Mignemi Alternative Agriculture and Growth 9. Alternative Agriculture in Northern Burgundy. The Wines of the Hôpital Général of Dijon in the Eighteenth Century T. J. A. Le Goff 10. The Emergence of the Breton 'Golden Belt'. The Region of Saint-Malo in the Eighteenth Century Emmanuelle Charpentier 11. Between Conversion and Innovation. Alpine Fruit Growing in Trentino-South Tyrol and the Valais, 1860-1960 Luigi Lorenzetti Changing Alternative Crops 12. New Crops in the Crisis of Mediterranean Agriculture. Valencia, 1800-1950 Salvador Calatayud 13. Alternative Agricultural Production in Switzerland, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century. Successes and Failures Anne-Lise Head-König 14. Considerations on Hemp and Alternative Agriculture in Italy, France and Russia from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century David Celetti 15. Conclusion. Agrarian Crises and Alternative Agriculture Salvatore Ciriacono