Rural life in pre-industrial Quebec was essentially organized around a feudal society. Allan Greer takes a close look at the at society and its economy in three parishes in Lower Richelieu valley – Sorel, St Ours, and St Denis – from 1740 to 1840. He finds a pronounced pattern of household self-sufficiency; as in other peasant societies, the habitants lived mainly from produce grown throught their own efforts on their own lands. How the family-based economy operated and how the household was reproduced over the generations through marriage, birth, inheritance, and colonization, together form a major focus of this study.

Allan Greer is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.

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• Winner, Macdonald Prize awarded by the Canadian Historical Association

'An excellent example of how local histories can challenge the traditional interpretations of this country's past.'

<em>Canadian Historical review</em>

'Greer [writes] with passion, ingenuity, and force.'

<em>American Historical Review</em>