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The 18th-century French leather industry was a strategically important manufacturing sector, one vital to both civilian and military life. This study examines the production of leather in the Bordeaux trades during the 18th and 19th centuries, illuminating the realities of a craft economy and its relation to the wider French political economy.

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1. Nature, Work, Regulation and the Bordeaux Leather Manufacturing Economy 2. Regulation and Economic Activity: The Bordeaux Shoemaking Trade 3. The Guild Communities 4. Apprentices and Journeymen 5. Establishment in the Leather Trades 6. Patron Leather Artisans 7. Reform, Revolution, Abolition and Beyond

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"By choosing to study the leather trades in the city of Bordeaux at the end of the ancient régime, Daniel Heimmermann aims both to deepen our understanding of the provincial corporate world and to shed light on a productive sector that is still little known ... . The book offers a valuable, lively, and well-documented social history ... . Heimmermann set his careful study of the leather trades in a quite conventional interpretive framework ... ." (Philippe Minard, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 89 (2), June, 2017)

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Daniel Heimmermann, Ph.D. is Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs University of Texas of the Permian Basin, USA.

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