The Mistral - by Catherine Tatiana Dunlop (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Every year, most forcefully when winter turns to spring, the chilly mistral wind blows through the Rhãone Valley of southern France over the northwest coast of the Gulf of Lion into the Mediterranean. Sometimes the winds are brisk and sustained, other times they are unleashed in violent gusts. Trees are knocked over or permanently bent to the east in the path of the wind, trains are swept off their tracks, crops are destroyed. Afterward the sky is clear and blue, as Provence is often pictured. The legendary wind is central to the area's regional identity, inspiring artists and writers near and far for centuries. This force of nature is the focus of Dunlop's Windswept, a beautifully written examination of the power of the mistral wind, and in particular the ways it has challenged central tenets of 19th century European society: order, mastery, predictability. As Dunlop shows, while the modernizing state sought liberation from environmental realities through scientific advances, land modification, and other technological solutions, the wind blew on, literally crushing attempts at control, and becoming increasingly integral to regional feelings of place and community"--

Book Synopsis

An in-depth look at the hidden power of the mistral wind and its effect on modern French history.

Every year, the chilly mistral wind blows through the Rhône valley of southern France, across the Camargue wetlands, and into the Mediterranean Sea. Most forceful when winter turns to spring, the wind knocks over trees, sweeps trains off their tracks, and destroys crops. Yet the mistral turns the sky clear and blue, as it often appears in depictions of Provence. The legendary wind is central to the area's regional identity and has inspired artists and writers near and far for centuries.

This force of nature is the focus of Catherine Dunlop's The Mistral, a wonderfully written examination of the power of the mistral wind, and in particular, the ways it challenged central tenets of nineteenth-century European society: order, mastery, and predictability. As Dunlop shows, while the modernizing state sought liberation from environmental realities through scientific advances, land modification, and other technological solutions, the wind blew on, literally crushing attempts at control, and becoming increasingly integral to regional feelings of place and community.

Review Quotes

"Catherine Tatiana Dunlop's new book on the Mistral might just sweep you off your feet . . . The Mistral is innovative, well researched, beautifully written, and richly illustrated."-- "H-France, H-Net Reviews"

"The author's original project, which approaches environmental and material history through an element that is much less considered than soil, water, or even fire, deserves a positive assessment. The field chosen is an interesting one, combining a number of dimensions, from the history of techniques to the history of art . . . . At a time when the wind is back in favour, with projects--controversial though they are--for wind turbines, let's hope that this book stimulates other environmental histories of the wind."-- "French History"

"The ubiquity of the mistral makes it the perfect subject for a book, and Catherine Tatiana Dunlop sketches out a total history of her subject. To tell what she calls a 'windswept history', she reaches back millennia to the creation of the Mediterranean Biogeographical Region and the emergence of regional wind patterns in the Pliocene era. But the bulk of her empirical material comes from the nineteenth century, when a new generation of scientists and technocrats claimed that they could tame the mistral."-- "Times Literary Supplement"

"Dunlop's final chapter builds gracefully on the theme of modernity's embrace of the mistral, this time through the perspective of nineteenth-century art. Discussing both native Provençal painters (Emile Loubon and Paul Cézanne) and outsiders (Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh), she reviews works that diversely capture the mistral's effects, from its gradual sculpting powers to its immediate impacts on sea, sky, and vegetation."-- "Current History"

"Dunlop's book demonstrates the surprising persistence of regional identity at a time of increasing homogenization and centralization in France. While a number of scholars have addressed the tension between local and national identity in France, including Robert Zaretsky and Stéphane Gerson, Dunlop focuses on environmental factors that 'exert their own dynamic pressures on history, whether people like it or not' (p. 6). Against efforts to create a unified national space, natural forces generated distinctive landscapes and cultures. Windswept Provence offers just one gusty example."-- "H-Environment, H-Net Reviews"

"In her brilliant book, Catherine Dunlop takes the reader on a captivating journey, showing how the mistral--the mythical wind of Provence--has shaped the physical, cultural, economic and political realities of this part of France and of the Mediterranean world throughout history. From sailors to scientists, from Frédéric Mistral to Vincent Van Gogh, this powerful and enigmatic force has shaped not only people's lives, but also their relationship with the world and the art of the 19th and 20th centuries. A deeply original book, which tells a story that is indissolubly social and ecological: that of a wind that has made history."--Fabien Locher, coauthor of 'Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change'

"This beautifully written book takes an innovative approach to French history as well as its environmental history. Historian Catherine Dunlop engages deeply with the history of France, the windscape of the Mistral, and Provence at the same time that she weaves in science, environment, public health and the arts and humanities to craft a truly unique volume on the (environmental) history of France. She successfully brings Geography into History in a way few other scholars have done to show how the material fact of the Mistral derailed capitalist colonization of Provence by the central administrative state. At the same time the Mistral provided those living in Provence with not only their own regional identity but also with a model for resistance. Dunlop has written a masterpiece that should be read by historians, geographers and all those interested in France and new interpretations of nation-building and national identity formation."

--Diana K. Davis, University of California, Davis

"More than a study of a windscape, this book explores the history of the legendary mistral, which blows across southern France as a "living physical archive" that has long shaped and ultimately transformed both the natural landscape as well as human lives in the century following the French Revolution. Drawing on a wealth of literary, visual, scientific and administrative sources, this beautifully written book stands at the intersection of environmental, political, regional, economic and cultural history. Like the mistral itself, this book is both powerful and engaging. A tour de force."--Caroline Ford, University of California, Los Angeles

"In beautifully evocative prose, Dunlop explores the material and metaphorical power of the mistral in the making of modern France. Deceptively deft in touch, Dunlop's lively rendering of the history of the mistral leaves the reader pondering deeper questions about anthropogenic climate change and the drama humans have unleashed in the earth's weather systems, even as our time on the planet has been--and will be--but dust in the wind."--C. Kieko Matteson, author of 'Forests in Revolutionary France: Conservation, Community, and Conflict 1669-1848'

About the Author

Catherine Tatiana Dunlop is an associate professor of modern European history at Montana State University, Bozeman. She is the author of Cartophilia, published by the University of Chicago Press, and serves as an associate editor for the journal Environmental History.