Introduction: the Early Modern Fire
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Abstract
The introductory essay illustrates the aim of the volume, which is to renew the history of fire by treating it as an object worth studying in its own right. Rather than lurking in the background of particular histories (of energy, the environment, domesticity, etc.), fire is brought to the fore of the narrative. The focus is on the early modern period, i.e. the period preceding the emergence of industrial societies. We propose that fire be considered first and foremost as a phenomenological object: it is a process that produces flames, heat and light, and that transforms matter as it burns. The first question raised by the encounter with fire is how to handle its power: this explains the importance we attach to the notion of “handling (fire)” (or “(fire) management”). Handling fire has several epistemic and practical levels: it requires some knowledge, it has a technical dimension, but it is also a matter of social management. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed transformations and continuities in the ways in which fire was managed, pointing to the non-linearity of scientific and technological development, and to the complex genesis of the modern economy, politics and society.