Abstract
Originating in the mountains of south-central France, the wind system known as the mistral blows southward in the winter and spring, sweeping over the region of Provence on its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Barren rocks devoid of vegetation, bowed trees, white-capped waves and capsized boats offer visible evidence of this powerful wind system, with its gale-force winds and hurricane-strength gusts. For centuries, the inhabitants of Provence built their lives around these winds, developing housing, agricultural and maritime practices to accommodate the unique geographical and environmental challenges posed by a natural phenomenon the Greeks called the malemboras (‘black Boreas’). From windmills and short stone houses known as mas to the unique design of long, flat-bottomed sailboats called allèges (‘lighters’), elaborate wind charts and proficiency with tacking, the region's inhabitants perfected skills and routines that allowed them to bow and sway to the rhythm of these seasonal winds. After the French Revolution, however, this anemo-centric approach increasingly came under attack as Paris-based authorities, reformers, and scientific and technical experts sought to transform local practices in the name of modernization, national integration and economic progress.
Catherine Tatiana Dunlop's The Mistral offers a rich and compelling account of this contested windscape and its transformation over the course of the nineteenth century. In five rich chapters, Dunlop explores the ambitions and efforts of the French authorities to triumph over the mistral and reconfigure regional practices and culture in the name of science, progress and modernity. She begins her account by providing the reader with a local grounding, focusing on contests over site-specific practices regarding housing, agriculture and sailing developed over centuries. In the eyes of reformers, these regional practices were to be modernized to better integrate Provence and its inhabitants into the nation and the larger economy. From there, Dunlop considers two ambitious projects undertaken by the French authorities to harness the power of the mistral for modernization projects. The first was to develop an observatory at the top of the wind-battered Mount Ventoux, aimed at measuring and quantifying the wind system in ways that would contribute to the development of a centralized meteorological bureau in Paris. The second was the urban redevelopment of Marseilles after a mid-century outbreak of cholera, a disease that hygienists originally attributed to bad air. Here, the authorities aimed to transform the city and enable the mistral winds to aerate it in order to improve health and minimize miasmas and other wind/air-based malaises. In the final chapter, Dunlop turns to the history of plein-air painting, exploring how Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters like Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh sought out the rustic charms and authenticity of Provence. Their works captured the endangered wind-based traditions of local inhabitants even while the painters adjusted their own artistic practices to accommodate the force of the wind.
For readers of this journal, Chapter 2, ‘The Lion's Roar: Mediterranean Journeys with the Mistral’, is likely to be of the greatest interest. In this chapter, Dunlop explores the long-honed skills by which coastal inhabitants managed the risks of navigating the Mediterranean during the season of the mistral, paying particular attention to the wind maps and navigational guides they developed, as well as the tools used for measuring the wind. She also considers how regional sailors crafted the flat-bottom sailboats known as allèges, which were easier to manoeuvre in the wind, and perfected the skill of tacking. Coupled with judicious choices in routes, these tools and techniques enabled the sailors of Provence to zigzag across the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean, managing the risks posed by the mistral while pursuing their maritime-based livelihoods. Over the nineteenth century, however, steam-powered ships gradually displaced these local craft, effectively displacing regional sailors and marginalizing their place-based knowledge. In their wake arose another sailing culture – this one largely enjoyed by the affluent and leisure classes.
In this and all the chapters of The Mistral, Dunlop adeptly explores the ways in which regionally based practices and the people who honed them were displaced or marginalized by technological and scientific approaches that aimed to conquer the wind and modernize local life. In each instance, however, the wind proved to be a powerful force; the technical, scientific and economic ambitions of these central authorities and reformers were, in their own ways, shaped, bent and curtailed by the blustery northern wind. By prioritizing the environment and geography, and showing how a natural phenomenon like the mistral limited the ambitions of the French authorities, Dunlop's work offers a compelling counter-history of French nation-building, centralization and modernization.
Indeed, there are many merits to Dunlop's work. Most impressive is Dunlop's ability to comb through a wide array of sources for references to the mistral, essentially creating an archive out of thin air. In this, her work offers an excellent model for how to research and craft compelling, locally focused, place-specific environmental histories of modern France. In addition, she excels in her description of local practices and analysis of the logic that animated these customs, thereby offering readers a deep sense of the ways in which the environment and geography shaped the lives of Provence's inhabitants. She achieves this without romanticizing rural life.
There are, of course, limits to what Dunlop can achieve in this relatively slim volume. For some historians of modern France, Dunlop's work might seem a bit thin when it comes to the political and economic history of nineteenth-century French nation-building and modernization. At times, Dunlop's emphasis on environmental and regional history leads to a flattening of the complex politics and economic transformation of the period, including competing visions of the French nation and identity that distinguished various regimes. Yet, I would argue, these limits make this work an excellent contribution to the field precisely because it opens debate about how environmental approaches can help reconfigure and reframe the existing historiography on nineteenth-century French nation-building and modernization and create the opportunity for new accounts of this important history.
