How do peasants, producing mainly for themselves, become capitalist farmers, producing largely for sale? What happens to farm sizes, farming practices, and the relationships between cultivators and others in the process of this transition? How far does it vary from region to region? Is it inherent in the peasantry, or must it be instigated by landlord, townsfolk or the state? These are some of the questions addressed by Göran Hoppe and John Langton in this 1995 study of rural change in Sweden. Eschewing both traditional narrow empiricism, and the recent trend to over-employ modern social theory, the authors have carefully combined theories about the transition from peasantry to capitalism with meticulous analysis of the abundant Swedish records. In doing so, they reveal the wide geographical variety and rich socioeconomic complexity of the changes which occurred in the process of modernization in the nineteenth century.
ISBN: | 9780521026413 |
Publication date: | 1st June 2006 |
Author: | Göran Stockholms Universitet Hoppe, John University of Oxford Langton |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 484 pages |
Series: | Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography |
Genres: |
Social groups, communities and identities Historical geography |