This open access book provides a unique perspective on the social, economic, cultural and scientific lives of rice in Europe and the expanded Mediterranean from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Existing scholarship has looked at rice from a global and macro perspective, but A History of Rice in Italy and Beyond goes in another distinctive direction, moving from local to global case studies and back. In doing so, the book uses rice as a prism through which to explore broader questions and the ways it declined in different settings.

The book examines the tension between 'food security' and environmental equilibrium, the role of technical expertise and innovation in water, natural resources and labour force management, and the relationship between competition and cooperation. It provides innovative studies of market dynamics, following the trade routes of rice from local to global markets from Northern Italy and Spain to France, Flanders and the French Caribbean between the 15th and the 18th centuries. Lastly, the book explores rice as a cultural object which embodied the concept of Otherness, perceptions of the 'Orient', and visions of social status, colonial expansion, progress, civilisation and national rebirth.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.

Lavinia Maddaluno is Assistant Professor of Early Modern History at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy.

Rachele Scuro is Postdoctoral Fellow of Early Modern History at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy.