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Globalization, Railways, and Commercial Fishing in Great Britain and France, 

1860 to 1930

Robert M. Schwartz

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Abstract: 

Powered by steamships, railways, and telegraphy, the pace and extent of globalization grew dramatically from the 1850s to the Great Depression. This was especially true in the realm of agriculture, when a huge increase in the production and export of American wheat and beef generated a long agrarian crisis in Europe (1876-1896) as prices fell sharply, forcing farmers, landlords, and governments to adjust to intensifying competition in foodstuffs. Meanwhile, however, railways helped create commercial fishing on the industrial scale, sometimes by investing in port facilities, sometimes merely by offering rapid transport to the huge consumer markets of London and Paris. GIS and spatial analysis, will help demonstrate the geography and growth of commercial fishing in Great Britain and France.

rschwart@mtholyoke.edu

E. Nevius Rodman Professor of History

Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. U.S.A.

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