In this article the author examines a form of agricultural contract known as the colonia contract, which was widespread throughout the island of Madeira from 1750 and which was abolished in 1967. She argues that the publication of the liberal Civil Code of 1867 changed the rules concerning the operation of this contract. The landlord lost control of his economic property rights over the land. The change in the rules governing this type of contract partially explains the reduction in its use but the impact of the change is attributed to inefficiencies that already existed in the contract.

No abstract

Book reviews Dulce Freire and Pedro Lains (Eds.). An Agrarian History of Portugal, 1000-2000: Economic Development on the European Frontier. Leiden/Boston, Brill, 2017, 347 pp. Benedita Câmara Annie Antoine (Ed.). Agricultural Specialisation and Rural Patterns of Development. Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, 303 pp. Piet van Cruyningen Guido Alfani and Cormac Ó Gráda (Eds.). Famine in European History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 325 pp. Xavier Cussó Segura Marc Badia-Miró, Vicente Pinilla and Henry Willebald (Eds.). Natural Resources and Economic Growth: Learning from History. Abingdon/New York, Routledge, 2015, 374 pp. Sara Torregrosa Hetland Niccolò Mignemi. Coopératives et mondes agricoles: France et Italie (1880-1950). Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 337 pp. Miguel Cabo Domingo Gallego, Luis Germán y Vicente Pinilla (Eds.). Estudios sobre el desarrollo económico español. Dedicados al profesor Eloy Fernández Clemente. Zaragoza, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016, 408 pp. Santiago M. López-García Ricard Garcia Orallo. La terra a subhasta. Crisi, endeutament i despossessió al món rural català de finals del segle xix. Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2015, 644 pp. Samuel Garrido Lluís Serrano Jiménez. Tancar la terra: Pràctiques de propietat i dinàmiques socials (Catalunya, 1850-1910). Girona, Documenta Universitaria/Associació d’Història Rural de les Comarques Gironines, 2016, 324 pp. Antonio Miguel Linares Luján Jordi Planas Maresma. Francesc Torras Sayol (1868-1936): Un propietari conservador al capdavant de l’acció cooperativa. Barcelona/Valls, Fundació Roca i Galès/Cossetània Edicions, 2016, 102 pp. Josep M. Pons-Altés Josep Joan Mateu González. Enginyers i regants: El Canal d’Aragó i Catalunya (1896-1940). Lleida, Universitat de Lleida/Patronat Josep Lladonosa, 2017, 256 pp. Carles Sanchis Ibor Gladys Karina Sánchez Juárez. Los pequeños cafeticultores de Chiapas: Organización y resistencia frente al mercado. Tuxtla Gutiérrez, CESMECA-UNICACH, 2015, 225 pp. Albert Folch David Sowell. Medicine on the Periphery: Public Health in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870-1960. Lanham, Lexington Books, 2015, 205 pp. Mikel Astrain Pablo Alonso González. El Antipatrimonio: Fetichismo y dominación en Maragatería. Madrid, Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2017, 326 pp. Guadalupe Jiménez Esquinas Marcel Mazoyer y Laurence Roudart. Historia de las agriculturas del mundo: Del Neolítico a la crisis contemporánea . Oviedo, KRK, 2016, 1.073 pp. Cristóbal Gómez Benito

No abstract

The following four articles arise from a one-day conference on ‘Sharecropping in History’, organized by Benedita Câmara and held at the University of Madeira on 8 October 2004. The papers gathered here, though revised, reflect the variety of approach evident in their first presentations at the meeting. A fifth paper, by Kyle Kauffman, on ‘Monopsony land tenure and sharecropping in Dutch South Africa, 1652–1795’ (which was not presented for publication here) also suggested that same variety, not only in terms of the inevitable spatial and temporal range but also in terms of approach. That said, a number of discrete themes emerged from the meeting, with ‘sharecropping’ a central concept, tantalizingly clear and yet fiercely resistant to close categorization, offering a number of avenues for exploration. The majority of these approaches were conditioned by, and set out to test, some of the more prevalant assumptions of economic history and economic theory with regard to sharecropping.