Contents: Francesco Chiapparino: Foreword. The Dairy and Agri-food Industries - Claudio Besana/Rita d'Errico/Renato Ghezzi: Introduction - Claire Delfosse :Cheese-making in France at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. A Spatially Diffuse, Complex and Unique Organisation? - Luigi Lorenzetti: Switzerland's Dairy Industry in the Twentieth Century: Small-scale Artisan Production Meets the Market Economy - Claudio Besana: The Italian Dairy Industry between 1920 and 1960. Production and Organizational Structure - Stefanella Stranieri/Paolo Tedeschi: The Influence of the European Institutions and Policies on the Italian Dairy Sector - Benoit Mario Papillon: The Canadian Dairy Sector in the Twentieth Century. From Openness to Closure and Self-Sufficiency - Hildete De Moraes Vodopives/Valter Galan: Contemporary Challenges of the Brazilian Dairy Industry - Julia Lapp: New York State Cheese: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Transformations - Stefano Magagnoli: Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese. The Industrialization of Typicality - Sylvie Vabre: Roquefort: a Large Company Creates its Territory - Rita d'Errico: The Production of Pecorino Cheese in the Roman Countryside from the End of the Nineteenth century until the 1930s - Giuseppe Doneddu: Production and Processing of Sheep Milk in Sardinia (1950-2015) - Renato Ghezzi : The Tuscan Ovine Milk Industry, 1950-2000. A Quantitative Analysis -Vanessa Pollastro: From Milan to Novara. Production and Sale of Gorgonzola Cheese in the Twentieth Century - Franca Pirolo: Buffalo Mozzarella in Campania from Its Origin to the Twenty-First Century - Manuel Vaquero Piñeiro: The Modernization of the Dairy Industry in Italy in the Late Nineteenth Century. Social Dairies - Sivia A. Conca Messina: Enterprises, Trade and Industry in the Lombardy Dairy Sector. The Origins of Locatelli and Galbani (1860-1914) - Gianpiero Fumi: The Rise and Decline of a Large Company: the Polenghi Lombardo - Andrea M. Locatelli: The Multinationals and the Italian Agri-food Industries: the Dairy Sector (1974-1993).

Since the end of the nineteenth century the dairy sectors of some industrialised European and American countries have experienced a phase of growth that took place at a different rate and in a different manner in each country, and which was made possible by the availability of raw materials and a more widespread knowledge of scientific and technological methods. The sector¿s expansion was favoured by a revolution in transport networks, the beginning of globalisation in world markets and, decisively, by advances in packaging and refrigeration techniques. Italy in particular, despite its low availability of raw materials compared to other countries, rose quickly throughout the last century to become one of the largest international producers and exporters of cheese, especially of high value PDO cheeses. What factors were behind this achievement and which were the strengths and weaknesses of the sector during the twentieth century? The articles presented in this volume attempt to provide an answer to these questions from different points of view and using different interpretative approaches. The geographical range covered by these studies also reaches beyond Italy in order to look at other countries with relatively ancient dairy traditions. This comparative approach, although limited to just a few countries, is important in that it allows us to describe the evolution of a milk and dairy sector which has had such a large influence on the economic life of many regions in the Italian peninsula.

Claudio Besana is Associate Professor in Economic History at the faculty of Economics of the Catholic University in Milan, where he teaches Economic and Business history. His studies have focused on economic and social patterns in Italy and especially in Lombardy, from the 18th to the 20th century.
Rita d¿Errico is Associate Professor in Economic History at the Department of Business studies of Roma Tre University, where she teaches Economic history, Finance history, and Business history. Her research interests focus on analysis of banking and credit history, analysis of economic and social transformations in Italy and especially in Latium from the 18th to the 20th century.
Renato Ghezzi is Assistant Professor in Economic History at the University "Magna Graecia" of Catanzaro where he teaches History of Economic Thought and History of Economic Analysis. His research mainly pertains to the 17th Century Sea Trade and the Modern Economy of Tuscany.