Gender, Space and Illicit Economies in Eighteenth-Century Europe

This book seeks to contribute a multi-dimensional, multi-layered and gendered approach to the illicit economy in the historiography of early modern Europe. Using original source material from several countries, this volume concentrates on a border and transnational areaapproximately the Lyon-Geneva-Turin trianglelocated at the heart of European trade. It focuses on three productssalt, cotton and silkall of which fuelled the black market between the last decades of the seventeenth century and the French Revolution. This volume offers an original contribution to wider studies of smuggling, illicit markets and womens economic roles by taking into account the economic life of remote mountain communities and industrious cities. Showing that irregular practices were a structural characteristic of early modern economies, it provides insight into the opportunities offered to women in a highly flexible economy where licit and illicit activities were intermingled in a very complex way. This research monograph is aimed at a historical audience and constitutes a useful resource for students and scholars interested in gender history, social and economic history, urban history and French studies.