Famine's Fortune

This article focuses on the simultaneous flourishing of water mills and mechanised mills in Morocco during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It responds to the following question. What factors fostered and also inhibited the adoption of new technology? In answering this question, this article highlights the role of environment in determining the adoption of new technologies by entrepreneurs as well as industrial policies enacted by royal administrators. Holden argues that Moroccans used mechanised mills during environmental crises,when famine loomed, but reverted to traditional flour grinding technology during periods of sufficient rainfall, when the stalls in urban markets were filled with reasonably priced wheat.